d his slighter companion, who led the way, despite the
incumbrance of the box he carried.

Through pasture and swamp the chase continued. The boys were fleeter of
foot, but Farmer Ellison knew the ground. And once he skirted a boggy
piece of land and nearly headed them off. They turned toward the brook,
gained its shore and sped along to the foot of the dam. There the water,
diminished by the obstruction, flowed from a little basin out on to
shallower bottom, from which here and there a rock protruded.

Springing from one to another of these, slipping and splashing to their
knees, aided here and there by a bit of half decayed log or drift-wood,
they got across and scrambled up the opposite bank just as Farmer
Ellison, out of breath, appeared on the nearer shore.

"You poachers!" he cried, "Ye've got away this time. But look out for
the next. Remember, it's a shotgun full of rock salt and sore legs for
yer if yer come again."

He seated himself by the foot of the dam, nursing a bruised shin, and
watched them disappear through the fields.

"Scared 'em some, anyway, I reckon," he remarked. And was most assuredly
correct in that. The two boys had not stopped in their flight, and were
a mile above the crossing before Farmer Ellison turned himself homeward.

Safe from pursuit at last, Henry Burns threw himself down at the foot of
a tree and laughed till he nearly choked for want of breath.

"How we did scoot," he said. "Did you see old Ellison slip once and go
into the bog?"

"I didn't see anything," replied Harvey, "but a pair of legs in front of
me, cutting it through the mud and brush. How's the dress?"

"Oh, it's all right," said Henry Burns. "Come out if you've got your
wind. We'll leave it and get home."

They were at a point above Grannie Thornton's cottage, and they
proceeded now cautiously, making a circuit to bring them to the brook
some way above the house, pausing now and then to look and to listen.
But no one disturbed them. Farmer Ellison had had enough of the chase
and had gone home to nurse his shin.

They came down to the old house. It was dark, and all was still. Harvey
waited on watch near the gate, while Henry Burns stole up to the door
and laid the box down carefully against the front door. Then they sped
away.

"Go back the way we came?" inquired Henry Burns, slyly.

"Not much," said Harvey. "Straight out to the main road. No more swamps
for me."

They went out that way, then; took the m