t without much
noise. Two boys at the thills and two more pushing behind, they softly
trundled it down the yard, stopping at every unusually loud squeak. It
was almost as light as day; only in the yard the trees cast a slight
shadow of tangled branches, leafless as they were.

There was a suppressed sense of excitement, a strained thrill of the
nerves that made thumby work of their handling the buckles. The old
horse was sleepy, and wouldn't "stand round" to order, and they had to
push her into place; but they were ready at last, and Happy-go-Lucky
whispered "Pile in!"

They piled in literally one above the other, and lay down upon the hay
in the bottom of the cart. There might yet be some stray wanderer to
meet and run the gauntlet of his cross-questioning. The wheel struck
a stone, and there was a jounce; the bottom fellows wriggled out, what
was left of them, and sat up, gasping. They had rather run the risk than
try that again. But they met no one.

[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE VALIANT STAMPEDERS.]

It was a night when there is no sound. The insects are dead, the birds
have gone South with the other members of the higher circles of society;
there was only the rattle of the heavy cart, springless and jolty, along
the dusty road that wound like a great horseshoe around the long slope
of the ridge that shot up suddenly into "Paradise Hill." Beyond the
river a dog barked, a mile away, and ended in a melancholy howl. Ramon
shivered, and drew his blanket around him; he had a superstitious fear
of that sound.

The mountains in the North never seemed so high and dark before. Then
they saw that it was a cloud, black, sullen-looking--great masses of
vapor heaped in billowy folds, blackening the slopes with shadow, and
barely touched above with silver-gilt.

"Looks a little like a storm to-morrow," said Harry.

No one answered him. The chatter had somehow died away, and they were
more intent on keeping warm than talking. It wasn't all their fancy
painted it--this clear, cold moonlight; it was icy.

"Never mind, boys!" cried Charlie Brown cheerfully, as they drew up at
an old hop-house by the side of the road, and got out stiffly, "we can
howl now if we like, and nobody to hear."

But nobody wanted to howl. They did want to get up the slope to the edge
of the woods, where the sugar-house was, and putting horse and cart
together in the shed, they scaled the fence and started up the hill at a
lumbering trot. Now th