“I was a fool, I expect, for the canoe would have swamped under both of us. He knew this, and ordered me off with a look I did not like; there was madness in it. Well, we hurried round by the trail with, one lantern; Herne took the other. When we got here, you were apparently dead, Herne and two of the men swept off--the camp gone from below, and so on.” A cry was now heard. Several men hastened down, and soon lights were seen returning. Four of them bore Herne the Hunter. One arm and a leg were broken, and his skull crushed in; yet the wonderful vitality of the man had kept him alive and sensible. “We found him clinging to a sapling,” said one. “But he's about gone--poor fellow!” Poor fellow, indeed! Mrs. Renfro felt the lumps rise in her throat as she gazed upon that wreck, and thought. Presently Herne opened his eyes--already filling with the death-mist--and his gaze fell upon her face. “Alice,” he whispered, “my troubles--are over. This”--he tugged at something in his bosom with his uninjured arm, when some one drew forth his Bible, drenched and torn--“this saved me. I could have killed him--” he glanced at Renfro, who amid his pity now wondered. “I could--but--I saved you. And--now--Jesus--have mercy--” These were his last words, for in another minute Herne the Hunter was a thing of the past, and a weeping woman bent over him. After that there was silence for a while. Then the wife said to her husband, while the others removed the dead man: “It was his misfortune, not my fault, that he loved me. Has he not made amends?” And the husband, with his hands clasped in hers, could find no other heart than to say: “Aye--most nobly!” UNCLE DUKE'S “B'AR” STORY, By Lillian Gilfillan |I 'LOWED ez mebbe you uns ud like ter hear thet thar b'ar story. I reckon it's ten year this December since it all happened. I war a-livin' up in thet house on th' edge uv th' corn fiel' 'long side th' branch, an' ef it 't'warn't fer thet b'ar I'd be a-livin' thar yet, 'stead uv a-settin' in th' warm corner uv Jim Ladd's fireplace. I 'low ez yer knowed Jim didn't hev no great sight uv worldly efects when he married Becky Crabtree; I don't reckon his daddy war able ter do much fer him, 'ceptin' 'lowin' him the use uv thet yoke uv ole steers uv his'n. Thet war afore they moved th' mill out'n th' holler yander, so it war right handy fer Jim ter haul his logs ter, an' he jes' worked hisse'f plumb nigh ter death a-gettin' up thet leetle log house uv his'n, an' a-plantin' fruit trees an' sech, an' all summer Becky worked jes' ez hard a-berry pickin', tendin' her truck patch an' a-peddlin' up ter th' station.