But on reaching home I found that the old Squire had set off for Portland early that morning to see about selling his lumber and was not to return for a week. So I said nothing to any one. The night after he got back I watched for a chance to speak with him alone. After supper he went into the sitting-room to look over his lumber accounts, and I stole in after him. "You remember Jotham's oxen, gramp?" I began. "Why, yes," said he, looking up. "Well, I know where they are," I continued. "Where?" he exclaimed in astonishment. I then told him where Willis had found them and about the yard and the moose and deer we had seen with the oxen. "Willis doesn't want Jotham told," I added. "He says Jotham has abused those oxen enough, and that he is glad they got away from him. He made me promise not to tell any one at first, but finally he said that I might tell you, and that we should do as you think best." The old Squire gave me an odd look. Then he laughed and resumed his accounts for what seemed to me a long while. I had the feeling that he wished I had not told him. At last he looked up. "I suppose, now that we have found this out, Jotham will have to be told. They are his oxen, of course, and we should not feel right if we were to keep this from him. It wouldn't be quite the neighborly thing to do--to conceal it. So you had better go over and tell him." Almost every one likes to carry news, whether good or bad; and within fifteen minutes I had reached the Edwards farmhouse. Jotham, who was taking a late supper, came to the door. "What will you give to know where your lost oxen are?" I cried. "Where are they? Do you know?" he exclaimed. Then I told him where Willis and I had seen them. "Wal, I vum!" said Jotham. "Left me and took to the woods! And I've lost two years' work from 'em!" For a moment I was sorry I had told him. The next day he journeyed up to Willis's camp with several neighbors; and from there they all snowshoed to the yard to see the oxen and the moose. The strangely assorted little herd was still there, and, so far as could be judged, no one else had discovered them. Jotham had intended to drive the oxen home; but the party found the snow so deep that they thought it best to leave them where they were for a while. Since it was now the first week of March, the snow could be expected to settle considerably within a fortnight. I think it was the eighteenth of the month when Jotham and four other men finally went to get the oxen. They took a gun, with the intention of shooting one or more of the deer. A disagreeable surprise awaited them at the yard. At that time--it was before the days of game wardens--what were known as "meat-and-hide hunters" often came down over the boundary from Canada and slaughtered moose and deer while the animals were snow-bound. The lawless poachers frequently came in parties and sometimes searched the woods for twenty or thirty miles below the Line in quest of yards.