d.

Addison, moreover, had driven to the village that morning; and after
some discussion we decided to take the sleigh on our own responsibility.
It was partly buried in a snowdrift; but we dug it out, and then drew it
across the fields on the snow crust--lifting it over three stone
walls--to a little knoll below the Edwards barn.

We concluded to lay the dead lamb on the top of the knoll at a little
distance from the woods; the sleigh we left on the southeast side about
fifteen paces away. Tom thought that he could shoot accurately at that
distance, even at night.

For my own part I thought fifteen paces much too near. Misgivings had
begun to beset me.

"What if you miss him, Tom?" I said.

"I shan't miss him," he declared firmly.

"But, Tom, what if you only wounded him and he came rushing straight at
us?"

"Oh, I'll fix him!" Tom exclaimed. But I had become very apprehensive;
and at last, Tom helped me to bring cedar rails and posts from a fence
near by to construct a kind of fortress round the sleigh. We set the
posts in the hard snow and made a fence, six rails high--to protect
ourselves. Even then I was afraid it might jump the fence.

"He won't jump much with seven buckshot and a ball in him!" said Tom.

We left the empty sleigh there for three nights in succession; and every
morning Tom came over to tell me that the lamb had been taken.

"The plan works just as old Hughy told me it would," he said; "but I've
got only one lamb more, so we'll have to watch to-night. Don't tell
anybody, but about bedtime you come over." Tom was full of eagerness.

I was in a feverish state of mind all day, especially as night drew on.
If I had not been ashamed to fail Tom, I think I should have backed out.
At eight o'clock I pretended to start for bed; then, stealing out at the
back door, I hurried across the fields to the Edwards place. A new moon
was shining faintly over the woods in the west.

Tom was in the wood-house, loading the gun, an old army rifle, bored out
for shot. "I've got in six fingers of powder," he whispered.

We took a buffalo skin and a horse blanket from the stable, and armed
with the gun, and an axe besides, proceeded cautiously out to the
sleigh. Tom had laid the dead lamb on the knoll.

Climbing over the fence, we ensconced ourselves in the old sleigh. It
was a chilly night, with gusts of wind from the northwest. We laid the
axe where it would be at hand in case of need; and Tom trained the