"Hazelnut gave him the charge of a corner of the barn where some harnesses were kept, and Johnny's duty was to keep them in order there. One day Hazelnut came home and found that Johnny had taken out the long reins from the harness, and had fastened them to the branches of two trees in the back yard, to make a swing, and then he had loaded the swing with so many children, as to break it down." "Yes," said Phonny, "that was me too; but I did not think that the reins would break." "I know it," said Wallace. "You did not think. That is the nature of the kind of boyishness that I am speaking of. The boy does not _think_. Men, generally, before they do any new or unusual thing, stop to consider what the results and consequences of it are going to be; but boys go on headlong, and find out what the consequences are when they come." While Wallace and Phonny had been conversing thus, they had been riding through a wood which extended along a mountain glen. Just at this time they came to a place where a cart path branched off from the main road, toward the right. Phonny proposed to go into this path to see where it would lead. Wallace had no objection to this plan, and so they turned their horses and went in. The cart path led them by a winding way through the woods for a short distance, along a little dell, and then it descended into a ravine, at the bottom of which there was a foaming torrent tumbling over a very rocky bed. The path by this time became quite a road, though it was a very wild and stony road. It kept near the bank of the brook, continually ascending, until at last it turned suddenly away from the brook, and went up diagonally upon the side of a hill. There were openings in the woods on the lower side of the road, through which Wallace got occasional glimpses of the distant valleys. Wallace was very much interested in these prospects, but Phonny's attention was wholly occupied as he went along, in looking over all the logs, and rocks, and hollow trees, in search of squirrels. At last, at a certain turn of the road, the riders came suddenly upon a pair of bars which appeared before them,--directly across the road. "Well," said Wallace, "here we are, what shall we do now?" "It is nothing but a pair of bars," said Phonny. "I can jump off and take them down." "No," said Wallace, "I think we may as well turn about here, and go back. We have come far enough on this road." Just then Phonny pointed off under the trees of the forest, upon one side, and said in a very eager voice, "See there!" "What is it?" said Wallace. "A trap," said Phonny. "It is a squirrel trap! and it is sprung! There's a squirrel in it, I've no doubt. Let me get off and see." "Well," said Wallace, "give me the bridle of your horse." So Phonny threw the bridle over his horse's head and gave it to Wallace. He then dismounted--sliding down the side of the horse safely to the ground.