Consequently, when his uncle's team was on the road, Master Willard took a position upon his own load with as important an air as if he were on the box of a coach-and-four, and guided his cattle as if they were animals of the most docile disposition, to halt at his whisper or proceed at his word. As the principal part of the work was performed at midsummer under the rays of a scorching sun, the cattle were, of course, irritable and restive to a degree that in colder weather would have seemed inconsistent with the phlegmatic characteristics of their race. The road from Little York to Fullerville is a winding, narrow road, somewhat hilly in places, and neither very smooth nor level at any point. Midway between the two villages a brawling stream crosses the road, and making a turn empties itself, at the distance of about thirty yards, into the waters of the Oswegatchie. This stream is spanned by a rustic bridge at a very considerable elevation above the water. The banks are high and abrupt, and, as the traveler approaches them, he cannot fail to be attracted by the silvery sparkle of the waters far below. The view from the bridge takes in the white farm-houses with their emerald setting of rich grain-fields and meadowlands, the distant forge with its belching smoke-stacks, the winding Oswegatchie, and the distant blue hills. If the month happens to be August, the traveler may hear the cheerful hum of busy industry, the swinging cradles of the harvesters or the steady roll of the reaper. Upon a day, late in this richest of summer months--August--in the year of our Lord 1854, Willard and his uncle Henry were slowly wending their way towards Fullerville--the former with his ox-team and the latter with a spanking span of horses. The beasts of burden by their drooping heads and slow pace evinced the fact that the loads of ore they were drawing were unusually heavy, and this, combined with the sultry atmosphere, was telling upon the strength of even such powerful beasts as they.