"Now, what did I tell you? The Lick comes before the hunting camp, and there is no sugar camp at all. So the next thing you know you are not there, but lost. Besides all this, there are a thousand wild things in the woods, which even a strong man without his gun and knife would not be willing to run the risk of meeting. So just content yourself to stay at home, my boy, until to-morrow week, when we shall all be going to grandmam's quilting, and you will have somebody to keep you out of harm's way." "I could go now and get back in time to go then, too," urged Sprigg, who was in a fair way of sliding off into one of his pets. "But Sprigg, have you so soon forgotten what pap was telling us last night of his adventures between here and our old home? Once he was by three Indians chased far into the night, and pressed so closely that he only saved himself by leaping from a high bank into a deep river, where, as good luck would have it, a thick growth of rushes fringed the water's edge, thus affording him a hiding place until the savages gave up the pursuit. Then there was that other adventure with the two Indians, in which he should certainly have lost his life but for the timely assistance of brave Pow-wow. Now, Sprigg, what would you do miles and miles away from home, in the dark and lonesome woods, were you to see one of these terrible red men running to meet you, yelling like a demon--all hideously painted, rifle in hand, belt stuck full of tomahawks and scalping knives, eh?" "I would scamper away as fast as Shank's mare could carry me," promptly rejoined our hero, who, though vain as a young peacock, was as bold as a young game-cock. Elster continued: