Phonny seemed perplexed. After a moment's pause he added, "Couldn't we go down and tell Espy that there is a squirrel in his trap?" "Yes," said Wallace, "that we can do." Phonny stooped down and peeped into the trap again. "The rogue," said he. "The moment that I am gone, he will go to gnawing again, I suppose, and so get out and run away. What a little fool he is." "Do you think he is a fool for trying to gnaw out of that trap?" asked Wallace. "Why no,"--said Phonny, "but I wish he wouldn't do it. We will go down quick and tell Espy." So Phonny came back to the place where Wallace had remained in the road, holding the horses. Phonny let down the bars, and Wallace went through with the horses. Phonny immediately put the bars up again, took the bridle of his own horse from Wallace's hands, threw it up over the horse's head, and then by the help of a large log which lay by the side of the road, he mounted. He did all this in a hurried manner, and ended with saying: "Now, Cousin Wallace, let's push on. I don't think it's more than half a mile to the mill." CHAPTER III. THE PLOWING. While Wallace and Phonny were taking their ride, as described in the last chapter, Stuyvesant and Beechnut were plowing. Beechnut told Stuyvesant that he was ready to yoke up, as he called it, as soon as the horses had gone. "Well," said Stuyvesant, "I will come. I have got to go up to my room a minute first." So Stuyvesant went up to his room, feeling in his pockets as he ascended the stairs, to find the keys of his trunk. When he reached his room, he kneeled down before his trunk and unlocked it. He raised the lid and began to take out the things. He took them out very carefully, and laid them in order upon a table which was near the trunk. There were clothes of various kinds, some books, and several parcels, put up neatly in paper. Stuyvesant stopped at one of these parcels, which seemed to be of an irregular shape, and began to feel of what it contained through the paper. "What is this?" said he to himself. "I wonder what it can be. Oh, I remember now, it is my watch-compass." What Stuyvesant called his watch-compass, was a small pocket-compass made in the form of a watch. It was in a very pretty brass case, about as large as a lady's watch, and it had a little handle at the side, to fasten a watch-ribbon to. Stuyvesant's uncle had given him this compass a great many years before. Stuyvesant had kept it very carefully in his drawer at home, intending when he should go into the country to take it with him, supposing that it would be useful to him in the woods. His sister had given him a black ribbon to fasten to the handle. The ribbon was long enough to go round Stuyvesant's neck, while the compass was in his waistcoat pocket.