Tom and Ned Manning lived upon a farm in Northern Vermont. The Manning home was in a beautiful valley, and all about, as far as the eye could see, ranged the Green Mountains; the range which towered over this valley was called Cushman. The boys were quite elated one day when their father told them he would have to send them over the mountain to a far-off lumber camp, upon a very important errand. This meant a two days' holiday for them, no school, and plenty of adventure in the woods. "We'll start early," called Tom to his brother, already splitting his next morning's wood. "And if we have good luck, we can reach camp early in the afternoon. Snow-shoeing will be dandy, and say, we can just about ski down on the crusts, going down." "That's so; it's going to be a bully trip," replied Ned, "and mother's sure to put us up a big feed. Say, somehow mother doesn't like the idea of us two going alone over the mountain. Guess it's because the Eatons have been losing their sheep; and now the Strongs have lost a young calf, some think there's something big and wild around loose on the mountain somewhere--a panther, or something like that." "Joe Strong said their calf _never strayed_ away," replied Tom, "but father thinks it did. He thinks dogs got the sheep anyway, and he says nowadays there isn't anything big enough on the mountains to carry off such a big creature as a calf--hasn't been, for years. Anyhow, I'm not a coward. Say, let's ask for grandfather's gun to take with us," suggested Ned. The boys went to bed early that night, so as to get started by sunrise. The morning was keen, cold and sparkly, and the sun shone out upon the snow crusts as it came peeping over the pointed spruces on the summit of the mountain, and made them sparkle as if sprinkled with trillions of diamonds. They stowed away the ample lunch which their mother had put up, and Tom shouldered the old gun, while Ned carried the gum pole. They had decided to halt at a certain grove of giant spruces, half-way up Cushman, which they meant to visit for gum. The pole was long enough to reach into a tall tree, at the end was a sharp knife, and just beneath this a small cup, so that when the gum was chipped off, instead of falling down and being lost beneath among the pine needles, it dropped right into the cup. Soon the boys left the steep hilly pastures, the foot-hills of the mountains, behind them, and began climbing the side of old Cushman. "Look ahead, Ned; we're right in range of some dandy old spruces," called back Tom, who forged on ahead with the gun. "See, just beyond that ledge up there, we'll halt and get our gum, then we can soon climb up top and have our lunch. It won't take us long to go down. Come on; we must have that gum; it'll be good picking."