CE.

Herbert Watrous, when he separated from his companions on that balmy
afternoon in Indian summer, assumed a loftiness of bearing which was far
from genuine.

The fact was, he felt dissatisfied with himself, or rather with the
rifle which his indulgent father had presented to him only a few weeks
before.

"I don't like the way the thing behaves," he said, as he stopped to
examine it; "father paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars for it, and
it was warranted the best. It's pretty hard to hit a deer a quarter of a
mile off, but I ought to have brought down that squirrel which was only
a hundred feet distant."

He turned the weapon over and over in his hand, looked down the barrel,
tried the hammer and trigger, carefully examined the wind-gauge and
vernier rear-sights, but could not see that anything was out of order.

"I'm afraid it was my fault," he said, with a sigh, "but it will never
do to let the boys know it. I'll insist that I struck the buck, though
I'm afraid I didn't."

After going a little ways he noticed he was walking over a path which
was not marked very distinctly; it was, in fact, the route which Mr.
Fred Fowler, the industrious dweller in the log cabin, had worn for
himself in going to and from his work.

"That's lucky," said the lad, "for it's much easier traveling over a
path like that than tramping among the trees, where you have to walk
twice as far as there is any need of--confound it!"

This impatient remark was caused by a protruding branch, which just then
caught Herbert under the chin and almost lifted him off his feet.

The boy was sensible enough to understand that his failure to display
any good marksmanship was due to his own want of practice rather than to
any fault of his piece.

"That Nick Ribsam can beat me out of my boots; I never heard of such a
thing as 'barking' a squirrel till he showed me how it is done, and he
used a gun that is older than himself. Well, Nick was always smarter
than other boys; he is younger than I, and I have taken sparring lessons
of the best teachers in the country, while he never heard of such a
thing as science in using his fists; but he just sailed into me that
day, and the first thing I knew he had me down, and was banging himself
on me so hard that I have never got over the flattening out--hallo!"

A gray squirrel, flirting its bushy tail, whisked across the path in
front of him that moment, scampered up a hickory and perched itself nea