little light in the
woods by this time that he could not be sure about it. What was that man
after? Could he be watching him?

Harry was afraid to move. Perhaps the man mistook him for some kind of
an animal. To be sure, he could not help thinking that boys were
animals, but he did not suppose the man would want to shoot a boy, if he
knew it. But how could any one tell that Harry was a boy at that
distance, and in that light.

Poor Harry did not even dare to call out. He could not speak without
moving something, his lips any way, and the man might fire at the
slightest motion. He was so quiet that the musk-rat--it was a musk-rat
that lived in the hole--came out of his house, and seeing the boy so
still, supposed he was nothing of any consequence, and so trotted
noiselessly along to the water and slipped in for a swim. Harry never
saw him. His eyes were fixed on the man.

For some minutes longer--they seemed like hours--he remained
motionless. And then he could bear it no longer.

"Hel-low!" he cried.

"Hel-low!" said the man.

Then Harry got up trembling and pale, and the man came toward him.

"Why, I didn't know what you were," said the man.

"Tony Kirk!" exclaimed Harry. Yes, it was Tony Kirk, sure enough, a man
who would never shoot a boy--if he knew it.

"What are you doing here," asked Tony, "a-squattin' in the dirt at
supper-time?"

Harry told him what he was doing, and how he had been frightened, and
then the remark about supper-time made him think of his sister. "My
senses!" he cried, "there's Kate! she must think I'm lost."

"Kate!" exclaimed Tony. "What Kate? You don't mean your sister!"

"Yes, I do," said Harry; and away he ran down the shore of the creek.
Tony followed, and when he reached the big pine-tree, there was Harry
gazing blankly around him.

"She's gone!" faltered the boy.

"I should think so," said Tony, "if she knew what was good for her.
What's this?" His quick eyes had discovered the paper on the tree.

Tony pulled the paper from the pine trunk and tried to read it, but
Harry was at his side in an instant, and saw it was Kate's writing. It
was almost too dark to read it, but he managed, by holding it toward the
west, to make it out.

"She's gone home," he said, "and I must be after her;" and he prepared
to start.

"Hold up!" cried Tony; "I'm going that way. And so you've been getherin'
sumac." Harry had read the paper aloud. "There's no use o' leavin' yer
bag. Git it out