"My name is Warrington," replied Phil. "Thought so. Heard you were in town, saw you were a stranger. Now look here, you young cub," and old Bram flourished his whip in a way so menacing, and his crafty old eyes gleamed with such furious rage, that Phil was positively electrified--"you come sneaking around again trying to spy on me, and I'll fill you full of shot and salt and pepper!" Phil's eyes flashed. The insulting tone and manner aroused him indignantly. Only the age of his challenger prevented the youth from saying something desperate. He controlled himself, and remarked: "Your place? Why I don't even know where it is." "Bah! Think I can't figure out that your father sent you here for a purpose? Think I can't guess you to be the boy that I saw peeking in a window of my stone shed, if you don't wear a muskrat skin cap now, as you did then? Just you keep away from me and mine, young Paul Pry, or you'll get a dose that will lay you up for a while." And then with a vicious snort, and shaking his fist venomously, old Jasper Bram drove on with the sled. "Well! well!" the stupefied Phil had commented, staring wonderingly after the old man, "that's a fine reception for a fellow. My father is right, and Jasper Bram has little use for our family. A muskrat skin cap. I never owned one. That half-starved fellow who tried to get the food at Andy's barn must have made old Bram a visit, too." All these varied memories and reflections darted through Phil Warrington's mind as he now made the ascent of the hill on the land of the man he knew to be no friend. Soon he reached the summit. In an instant his meditative mood took flight. Real action fixed his attention. The minute Phil came into view of the summit of the hill a loud call rang out: "Stop him!" CHAPTER II A FRUITLESS CHASE Phil Warrington looked over the landscape to trace the source of the echoing shout that had reached his ears. It was getting late in the afternoon, there was no sunlight, but the snow that showed here and there in patches and drifts dazzled his eyes somewhat. "That's Andy's voice," declared Phil. "Ah, I see him, and the mysterious boy, too! He's coming this way! None too soon, and he surely did not see me." Phil had made out Andy at quite a distance. He was pursuing the boy who wore the muskrat skin cap. As the young Bostonian had appeared in sight, Andy had seen and instantly recognized Phil. Not so the fugitive. His head had been turned to ascertain if he was gaining on his pursuer. By the time he looked in front of him again, Phil had jumped aside to shelter himself behind a tree stump.