of a story he would pause and peer thoughtfully into the distance, meanwhile feeling the pipe-stem with his lips, and then resume the narrative as suddenly as he had stopped.  He was a lank and powerful man, six feet tall in his stockings.  He wore a thin beard that had the appearance of parched grass on his ruddy countenance.  In the matter of hair, nature had treated him with a generosity most unusual.  His heavy shock was sheared off square above his neck.

That evening, as he lay on his elbow in the firelight, D’ri had just entered the eventful field of reminiscence.  The women were washing the dishes; my father had gone to the spring for water.  D’ri pulled up suddenly, lifted his hat of faded felt, and listened, peering into the dusk.

“Seems t’ me them wolves is comin’ nearer,” he said thoughtfully.

Their cries were echoing in the far timber.  We all rose and listened.  In a moment my father came hurrying back with his pail of water.

“D’ri,” said he, quietly, as he threw some wood on the fire, “they smell mutton.  Mek the guns ready.  We may git a few pelts.  There’s a big bounty on ’em here ’n York State.”

We all stood about the fire listening as the wolves came nearer.

“It ’s the sheep thet brings ’em,” said my father.

“Quite a consid’able number on ’em, tew,” said D’ri, as he stood cleaning the bore of his rifle.

My young sisters began to cry.

“Need n’t be scairt,” said father.  “They won’t come very near.  ’Fraider of us ‘n we are o’ ’em, a good deal.”

“Tow-w-w!” said D’ri, with a laugh.  “They ‘ll be apt t’ stub ther toes ’fore they git very nigh us.”

This did not quite agree with the tales he had previously been telling.  I went for my sword, and buckled its belt about me, the scabbard hanging to my heels.  Presently some creature came bounding over the brush.  I saw him break through the wall of darkness and stop quickly in the firelight.  Then D’ri brought him down with his rifle.

“Started him up back there ’n the woods a few mild,” said D’ri.  “He was mekin’ fer this ’ere pond—­thet ’s what he was dewin’.”

“What for?” I inquired.

“’Cause fer the reason why he knowed he would n’t mek no tracks ’n the water, ner no scent,” said D’ri, with some show of contempt for my ignorance.

The deer lay floundering in the briers some fifty feet away.  My father ran with his knife and put him quickly out of misery.  Then we hauled the carcass to clear ground.

“Let it lie where ’t is fer now,” said he, as we came back to the fire.  Then he got our two big traps out of the cart and set them beside the carcass and covered them with leaves.  The howling of the wolves had ceased.  I could hear only the creaking of a dead limb high above us, and the bellow of frogs in the near pond.  We had fastened the trap chains and were coming back to the fire, when the dog rose, barking fiercely; then we heard the crack of D’ri’s rifle.