Hesitating hardly a moment, Hale unjointed his pole, left his minnow bucket where it was, mounted his horse and rode up the path. About him, the beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a little ravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire with the scarlet of maple. Not even yet had the morning chill left the densely shaded path. When he got to the bare crest of a little rise, he could see up the creek a spiral of blue rising swiftly from a stone chimney. Geese and ducks were hunting crawfish in the little creek that ran from a milk-house of logs, half hidden by willows at the edge of the forest, and a turn in the path brought into view a log-cabin well chinked with stones and plaster, and with a well-built porch. A fence ran around the yard and there was a meat house near a little orchard of apple-trees, under which were many hives of bee-gums. This man had things “hung up” and was well-to-do. Down the rise and through a thicket he went, and as he approached the creek that came down past the cabin there was a shrill cry ahead of him. “Whoa thar, Buck! Gee-haw, I tell ye!” An ox-wagon evidently was coming on, and the road was so narrow that he turned his horse into the bushes to let it pass. “Whoa--Haw!--Gee--Gee--Buck, Gee, I tell ye! I'll knock yo' fool head off the fust thing you know!” Still there was no sound of ox or wagon and the voice sounded like a child's. So he went on at a walk in the thick sand, and when he turned the bushes he pulled up again with a low laugh. In the road across the creek was a chubby, tow-haired boy with a long switch in his right hand, and a pine dagger and a string in his left. Attached to the string and tied by one hind leg was a frog. The boy was using the switch as a goad and driving the frog as an ox, and he was as earnest as though both were real. “I give ye a little rest now, Buck,” he said, shaking his head earnestly. “Hit's a purty hard pull hyeh, but I know, by Gum, you can make hit--if you hain't too durn lazy. Now, git up, Buck!” he yelled suddenly, flaying the sand with his switch. “Git up--Whoa--Haw--Gee, Gee!” The frog hopped several times. “Whoa, now!” said the little fellow, panting in sympathy. “I knowed you could do it.” Then he looked up. For an instant he seemed terrified but he did not run. Instead he stealthily shifted the pine dagger over to his right hand and the string to his left. “Here, boy,” said the fisherman with affected sternness: “What are you doing with that dagger?” The boy's breast heaved and his dirty fingers clenched tight around the whittled stick. “Don't you talk to me that-a-way,” he said with an ominous shake of his head. “I'll gut ye!” The fisherman threw back his head, and his peal of laughter did what his sternness failed to do. The little fellow wheeled suddenly, and his feet spurned the sand around the bushes for home--the astonished frog dragged bumping after him. “Well!” said the fisherman. IV