e candle flared up for an instant,
revealing black, mysterious aisles among the ponderous tree-trunks,
then guttered down and almost went out, the darkness seeming to swoop
in upon its defeat. The woman examined it, found that it was all but
done, and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Then she made anxious
haste to empty and replace the last of the birchen cups before she
should be left in darkness to grope her way back to the cabin.

The sap was running freely that spring, and the promise of a great
sugar-harvest was not to be ignored. Dave Stone's house and farm lay
about three miles distant, across the valley of the "Tin Kittle," from
the maple-clad ridge of forest wherein he had his sugar-camp. The camp
consisted of a little cabin or "shack" of rough boards and an open
shed with a rude but spacious fireplace and chimney to accommodate the
great iron pot in which the sap was boiled down into sugar. While the
sap was running freely, the pot had to be kept boiling uniformly and
the thickening sap kept skimmed clean of the creaming scum; and
therefore, during the season, some one had to be always living in the
camp.

Dave Stone had built his camp at an opening in the woods, in such a
position that, from its own little window in the rear, he could look
out across the wide valley of the "Tin Kittle" to a rigid grove of
firs behind which, shielded from the nor'easters, lay his low frame
house, and red-doored barn, and wide, liberal sheds. The distance was
only about three miles, or less, from the house to the sugar-camp. But
Dave Stone was terribly proud of the prosperous little homestead which
he had carved for himself out of the unbroken wilderness on the upper
"Tin Kittle," and more than proud of the slim, gray-eyed wife and
three sturdy youngsters to whom that homestead gave happy shelter. On
the spring nights when he had to stay over at the camp, he liked to be
able to see the grove that hid his home.

It chanced one afternoon, just in the height of the sap-running, that
Dave Stone was called suddenly in to the settlement on a piece of
business that could not wait overnight. A note which he had endorsed
for a friend had been allowed to go to protest, and Dave was excited.

"Ther' ain't nothin' fer it, Mandy," said he, "but fer ye to take the
baby an' go right over to the camp fer the night, an' keep an eye on
this bilin'."

"But, father," protested his wife, in a doubtful voice, "how kin I
leave Lidy an' Joe