“I guess he’d ‘a’ tore off his veil if the dog had give him a little more time,” said Samson.  “Ol’ Uncle Bear had trouble at both ends and didn’t know which way to turn.”

A good-sized piece of bacon still, lay in the bottom of the basket.

“I wouldn’t wonder if that would taste pretty beary now,” said Samson, as he surveyed the bacon.  “It’s been sneezed at and growled on so much.  Betsey, you take that down to the shore o’ the river there and wash the bear out of it.  I’ll skin him while yer mother is gettin’ breakfast.  There’s plenty o’ live coals under the venison rack, I guess.”

They set out rather late that morning.  As usual, Joe stood by the head of Colonel while the latter lapped brown sugar from the timid palm of the boy.  Then the horse was wont to touch the face of Joe with his big, hairy lips as a tribute to his generosity.  Colonel had seemed to acquire a singular attachment for the boy and the dog, while Pete distrusted both of them.  He had never a moment’s leisure, anyhow, being always busy with his work or the flies.  A few breaks in the pack basket had been repaired with green withes.  It creaked with its load of jerked venison when put aboard.  The meat of the bear was nicely wrapped in his hide and placed beside it.  They sold meat and hide and bounty rights in the next village they reached for thirty long shillings.

“That cheers up the ol’ weasel,” Samson declared, as they went on.

“He got a hard knock after we met the Brimsteads,” said Sarah.

“Yes, ma’am! and I’m not sorry either.  He’s got to come out of his hole once in a while.  I tell ye God kind o’ spoke to us back there in No Santa Claus Land.  He kind o’ spoke to us.”

After a little silence, Sarah said:  “I guess He’s apt to speak in the voices of little children.”

His weasel was a dried pig’s bladder of unusual size in which he carried his money.  Samson had brought with him a fairly good quantity of money for those days.  In a smaller bladder he carried his tobacco.

Farther on the boy got a sore throat.  Sarah bound a slice of pork around it and Samson built a camp by the roadside, in which, after a good fire was started, they gave him a hemlock sweat.  This they did by steeping hemlock in pails of hot water and, while the patient sat in a chair by the fireside, a blanket was spread about him and pinned close to his neck.  Under the blanket they put the pails of steaming hemlock tea.  After his sweat and a day and night in bed, with a warm fire burning in front of the shanty, Joe was able to resume his seat in the wagon.  They spoke of the Brimsteads and thought it strange that they had not come along.

On the twenty-ninth day after their journey began they came in sight of the beautiful green valley of the Mohawk.  As they looked from the hills they saw the roof of the forest dipping down to the river shores and stretching far to the east and west and broken, here and there, by small clearings.  Soon they could see the smoke and spires of the thriving village of Utica.