"`Wal,' said Pete, `I sees a ground-hog [hedgehog] a sort o' slippin' across this way, soon after I left the track this afternoon, and we had a mortal tight race out to this log here, and then it got here first, and got away. When I sees what the thing went and done, my dander riz, and sez I to myself, Pete Tonsley 'll show you how to slide into a log next time; and then I kindles a fire up in the holler at this end of the log, a-thinkin' I might smoke the varmint out at t'other. Wal, I smoked, and I smoked, but nary a ground-hog could I see come out, and then sez I to myself, it might be that the "wood chuck" had slipt out while I was lightin' the fire, and I had best be going back to the track afore it gets dark. But I didn't like to be beat by a ground-hog, so I got a long pole and punched into the log at t'other end, but nary nothin' would come out, though it struck me I could feel it, and once I thought I heard it chatter, as if a sorter a-darin' me. That made me mortal mad, and, seeing as how the holler was big enough to creep in at yon end furthest from the fire, I lay down, grit my teeth, and slid in, determined to fetch out the varmint, dead or alive. I wound into the log right up to the fire thar, and seed it was all a mistake. I could feel nary a ground-hog in it, and then I began to hitch back feet foremost, but one hitch was all I could make, for just as I was making the second scrouge out, a knot, or a sharp sliver, or somethin' catched into the seat of my britches, and held me as tight as a wedge. The britches bein' new, I could not tear loose. I kickt and I cust, and squirmed around in the log for some time, and then I found one of my legs got fast too. It seemed a funny thing at fust to be in this fix, but when the fire begun to blaze in at the end of the log thar, and to creep atords me, I kinder got to feelin' very oneasy, and when it got right up, and kotched the handkerchief what I tied around my head, I felt mortal skeered. When it came to singin' of my har, I began to holler, and that's what brought you out here, I reckon.' "It was a lucky moment for Pete that we found him, for fire in ten minutes more would have sent him to his long home." With these two narratives of the sergeant's adventures abroad, I must close my remarks concerning him. How he lost his money, got into the Spanish service, and eventually in the British army, he never appeared ready to explain. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails. Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea, Breasting the lofty surge. Shakespeare. ------------------------------------------------------------------------