This deplorable state of affairs continued to grow worse instead of better as the holidays approached. One evening, a week or ten days before Christmas, it commenced raining, but, becoming suddenly very cold in the night, the rain turned to ice, and the following morning the roofs, sheds, fences, trees--everything, in fact--was covered with a coating of ice. With the beams of the rising sun shining over all, it seemed a picture of fairy land. But Nat Bascom arose that morning with an uglier feeling against Al Peck than ever. Donning his outside garments, he went out to assist his father in feeding the cattle. The hay-stack behind the barn had a glittering coat of ice, and, as he approached it, Nat discovered something else about it as well. Close to the ground, on the lea of the stack, were a number of objects which Nat quickly recognized as geese--thirteen of them. "They're those plaguey geese of Al Peck's!" exclaimed Nat, as one of the birds stretched out its long neck at his approach and uttered a threatening "honk! honk!" The geese tried to scuttle away as he came nearer, and then for the first time Nat discovered that they, like the inanimate things about them, were completely sheathed in ice; so much so, in fact, that they could not use their wings. Nat stood still a moment and thought. "I know what I'll do," he said, aloud, "I'll put them in pound, same as father did old Grayson's cattle last summer, and make Al pay me to get them out." With this happy thought, he at once set about securing the geese. One end of an old shed near by had in former times been used by the Bascoms for a hen-house, and there was still a low entrance through which the fowls were wont to go in and out. Carefully, and so as not to alarm them, Nat drove the thirteen birds into the shed and clapped a board over the opening. The geese objected with continued cries to these proceedings, but they were too thoroughly coated with ice to get away. "There, now, Mister Al Peck, I think I'll get even with you this time," he said, in a tone of satisfaction. Hastening through the remainder of his chores, he started off in the direction of the Peck place without saying a word about the matter to either of his parents. As he approached Mr. Peck's barn, he beheld Al returning from the direction of his goose-pen. "You needn't look for them, Al Peck," remarked Nat, with a malicious grin, "for you can't find them. You ought to keep your old geese shut up, if you don't want to lose them." "I haven't lost them," declared Al, with a somewhat puzzled expression of countenance. "Oh, you haven't?" snapped Nat, angered at the other's apparent coolness. "You needn't think you're going to get them back for nothing. I found them all camped under our haystack this morning, and drove them into the old hen-house. You've just got to pay me ten cents apiece for them before I'll let them out. I bet you'll keep them to home after this."