to the
blast. As the morning approached, it died out altogether, and the sun
rose on one of the fairest days that ever was seen.

Early as was the orb, the inmates of the cabin were waiting to greet it
when it appeared above the horizon. The boys were in high spirits over
the beautiful morning, and both felt that it promised well for the
venture before them.

"I tell you _we're going to win_!" said Jack, compressing his lips and
shaking his head. "I feel it in my bones, as your father says, just
before a storm comes."

"Dot's vot I dinks," assented Otto, whose only discomfort was his
exceeding hunger: "Vot you dinks, Mrs. Carleton?"

"I hope you will not be disappointed; that is the most I can say. Jack's
feeling that you are going to succeed is simply his pleasure over the
prospect of a ramble in the woods. We will eat breakfast, after which
you can go home and make your preparations for the journey."

When they were seated at the table and Otto's hunger was nearly
satisfied, he told his friends with a grin, that it was the first food
he had tasted in twenty-four hours. They were shocked, and both took him
to task for his failure to make known the truth the evening before. He
made the philosophic reply that if he had done so he would have missed
the boundless enjoyment of such a meal as that of which he was then
partaking.

Mrs. Carleton on rising in the morning felt that Otto ought not to be
allowed to go on the expedition until after a further talk with his
parents, who, despite what they had said, might be unwilling for him to
engage in such an undertaking; but when she learned how the poor fellow
had been made to suffer with hunger her feelings changed. It was hard to
repress her indignation, and she made up her mind to talk to the cruel
folks as they had never been talked to before; but she allowed no
impatient word to escape her in the presence of their son. She simply
advised him to depart as soon as he could upon the hunt for the horse,
and not to return, if possible, until it was recovered or another
obtained.

"Dot is vot I does," replied Otto with a shake of his head and a
determined expression; "Otto doesn't comes back till he brings some kind
of animal--if it's only a 'coon or 'possum."

When he walked over to his own home (the building for which was
precisely the same as that of widow Carleton), his father and mother
were eating their breakfast. They looked surlily at him as he entered,
and th