"Well, then, when Goblin came to me in his infancy, he wore a silver collar with his name all beautifully engraved on it. May be the dead man in the boat had been bringing him from some strange land to the childer at home, and thinking how the odd name would please them all, when the shadows were darting around his hearth. And so Goblin howled his way through the world, till one full moon eve, when every bog was shinin' as if the peat was silver. Such times, any way in old Ireland, your honors, the air is full of unwholesome spirits. This was good as a wake for Goblin, and I can just hear him now the way he cried and howled that night! He kept both eyes fixed on the moon, and no mortal man, livin' or dead, will ever know what he saw, but when he howled out worse nor common that night, it meant, may be, that some witch, uglier than the rest, had just whisked across the shinin' sky. Just at midnight, I was waked out of a swate sleep by the quietness without, the way a miller is when his mill stops. I looked out of the window at the dog where he sat, an', faith, the dog wasn't there at all! Just then I heard a despairin' sort of howl, away up in the air above the trees, an' by that token I knew the witches had Goblin. Next mornin', one of the lads livin' convanient to us told me he had heard the same cry in the middle of the night, the cry, your honors, of the poor beast as the witches carried him off. Afore the week was out, Goblin's collar was found on the gamekeeper's grave; that was all--not a hair else of him was ever seen in old Ireland." As Shamus concluded his veracious narrative he looked around upon us with an air of triumph, as if satisfied that even Sachem dare not now dispute the second sight of the canine race. That worthy took occasion to declare on the instant, however, that the nearest neighbor was fully justified in playing the witch. If any thing could destroy the happiness of human beings, as well as of the broom-riding beldams, it would be the howling of worthless curs at night. He himself had often been in at the death of vagabond cats and dogs engaged in moon-worship. The outbursts of Goblin had simply been silenced in an outburst of popular indignation. [Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION NY._ SMASHING A CHEYENNE BLACK KETTLE.] CHAPTER XV. A FIRE SCENE--A GLIMPSE OF THE SOUTH--'COON HUNTING IN MISSISSIPPI--VOICES IN THE SOLITUDE--FRIENDS OR FOES--A STARTLING SERENADE--PANIC IN CAMP--CAYOTES AND THEIR HABITS--WORRYING A BUFFALO BULL--THE SECOND DAY--DAUB, OUR ARTIST--HE MAKES HIS MARK.