At that time nearly every farmer in the vicinity kept a flock of from fifty to a hundred sheep. During the warm season the animals got their own living in the back pastures; in winter they were fed on nothing better than hay. The animals usually came out in the spring thin and weak, with the ewes in poor condition to raise their lambs. In consequence, many of the lambs died soon after birth, and were thrown out on the snow for the crows and wild animals to dispose of. The old Squire had begun to feed corn to his flock during the latter part of the winter, and urged his neighbors to do so; but many of them did not have the corn and preferred to let nature take its course. The mysterious animal that the boys were talking about seemed to have formed the habit of visiting that region every spring. Not even the older people knew to what species it belonged. It came round the barns at night, and no one had ever seen it distinctly. Some believed it to be a catamount or panther; others who had caught glimpses of it said that it was a black creature with white stripes. Traps had been set for it, but always without success. Mr. Wilbur, one of the neighbors, had watched from his barn and fired a charge of buckshot at it; but immediately the creature had disappeared in the darkness, carrying off a lamb. It visited one place or another nearly every night for a month or more--as long, indeed, as the supply of lambs held out. Then it would vanish until the following spring. On the day above referred to I saw Tom coming across the snowy fields that lay between the Edwards' farm and the old Squire's. Guessing that he had something to tell me, I hastened forth to meet him. "That old striped catamount has come round again!" Tom exclaimed. "He was at Batchelder's last night and got two dead lambs. And night before last he was at Wilbur's. I've got four dead lambs saved up. And old Hughy Glinds has told me a way to watch for him and shoot him." Hughy Glinds was a rheumatic old man who lived in a small log house up in the edge of the great woods and made baskets for a living. In his younger days he had been a trapper and was therefore a high authority in such matters among the boys. "We shall have to have a sleigh or a pung to watch from," Tom explained. "Old Hughy says to carry out a dead lamb and leave it near the bushes below our barn, and to haul a sleigh there and leave it a little way off, and do this for three or four nights till old Striped gets used to seeing the sleigh. Then, after he has come four nights, we're to go there early in the evening and hide in the sleigh, with a loaded gun. Old Striped will be used to seeing the sleigh there, and won't be suspicious.