ller wif de black coat, trimmed in yeller, was a
lynx--dat's his'n's dress ebbery time--an' I'd 'a' heap rudder meet up
wif a mountain lion, any day, dan one 'o' dem ar! Land, chile! Ef hit
had 'a' been me, down dar by de ribber, I'd 'a' helt Guard to keep him
still, an' I'd 'a' kep' out o' sight. Dat's w'at I'd 'a' done, honey."

"Do you recollect, Leslie," Jessie chimed in, "what Mrs. Loyd told us
about her encounter with a lynx, last year? She said that she was in
the house one day, when she heard a great outcry among her chickens,
right close at hand, in the yard. She ran to the door, and there was a
great lynx, chasing the chickens around. The minute the door was
opened, they ran toward it, and into the house. The lynx was right
behind them, but it stopped as the chickens crowded around her, and
she seized the broom and struck at it. Instead of running, it stood
its ground and showed its teeth, bristling up and growling. She
dropped the broom and sprang into the house, slamming the door shut
just as the lynx hurled itself against it. She said that she was
almost scared to death. She locked the door, and scrambled up into the
loft--she said that she was afraid the cat would take a notion to
break in at one of the windows--and the creature stayed outside and
killed chickens as long as he pleased, while she stayed up there,
trembling, until her husband came home. She said that the next time a
bob-cat wanted one of her chickens it could have it, for all of her."

"I would hate to have Guard get hurt," I said, looking affectionately
at our follower.

CHAPTER XIII

JOE DISAPPEARS

The plowing was done--had been done for some days, indeed--and the
time set for our offering final proof was close at hand. But Jessie
and I, going about our household tasks with sober faces, had hardly a
word to say to each other.

We had looked forward to this coming day with such eager expectation,
but now that it was so near, we shrank with dread from facing it. A
trouble so great as, under the circumstances, to deserve to be ranked
as a calamity, had befallen us. Joe was gone. He had left us without a
sign, at the time, of all others in our whole lives, when we most
needed him. On the evening of the day that the plowing was done he had
retired, as usual, to his little room off the kitchen, and when we
awoke in the morning he was gone. That was all. But it was enough. It
was a fact that seemed to darken our whole world. It wa