The great pine branches and the evergreens nailed against the corner posts and wreathed into festoons along the walls shook and trembled in the uproar as to the passage of winds along their native hills.  And the huge buck’s heads, whose antlers were tied with rosettes and streaming ribbons, lost the staring look of their great artificial eyes and seemed as they gazed out through the interlacing boughs of cedar and balsam as if life had returned to them, and they once more were animate.

In about an hour the company streamed back into the parlor, with a mood even livelier than that which had characterized the early hours of the occasion.  Their minds were in the state of highest action, and their bodies needed but the opportunity for rapid motion.  Even the Lad had caught the infection of the surrounding liveliness, for his eyes and face glowed with the light of quickened animation.

“Have ye got any jigs in that fiddle, Lad?” said the Trapper; “Can ye twist any thing out of yer instrument that will set the feet travellin’?  It seems to me that the young folks here want shakin’ up a leetle; and a leetle of the old-fashioned dancin’ will help ’em settle the vittles.  Can ye liven up, Lad, and give ’em a tune that will set ’em whirlin’?”

The only reply of the Lad was a motion of the bow; but the motion was effective, for it sent a torrent of notes into the air, which thrilled through the body and tingled along the nerves like successive electric shocks.  The old Trapper fairly bounded into the air; and when he struck the floor his feet were flying.  Nor was he alone; the jig had started a dozen on the instant; and the floor rattled and rang with the tap of toe and heel.

“Henry,” said the old Trapper, “hold on to me or I shall sartinly make a fool of myself.  The Lad is ticklin’ me from head to foot, and my toes are snappin’ inside of the moccasins.  Lord, who’d a thought that the blood in the veins of a man whose head is whitenin’ could be sot leapin’ as mine is doin’ at this minit by the scrapin’ of a fiddle!”

The Lad was a picture to see.  His bow flew like lightning.  His long fingers drummed and slid along the strings of the violin with bewildering swiftness.  The little instrument jetted and effervesced its melody.  The continuous and resounding noise poured out of it in tuneful bubbles.  The air was filled with tinkling fragments of sound.  The Lad’s body swayed to and fro.  His face glowed.  His eyes flashed.  The sweat stood in drops on his forehead, but still the bow snapped and crinkled, and the instrument continued to burst in musical explosions, while the floor shook, the windows rattled, and the lamps flared and fluttered, as the dancers chased the music on.

[Illustration:  “The music stopped with a snap.”]