and shout of "Ho, scare rabbit! But anyhow I mean to
keep in practice,'n' hev a cold-lead welcome ready for that air eagle if
he ever shows hisself this way agin."

The bird did not come; but about noon Tim Harkins did, ambling along on
a rawboned sorrel nag, and reined up at the gate with a long-drawn-out
"Whoa, thar'!"

"Wash Saunders! Oh, Wash!" he called, and that youth, rising from the
dinner-table, appeared in the ramshackle porch.

"Hello, Tim, is that you? Step in an' hev a bite, won't yer?"

"No, thankee. I'm jest on my way to a gander-pull over nigh the Springs,
'n' on'y stopped to fotch you a message. Ye wouldn't keer, naow, to hire
out for a few weeks, at a dollar a day, would yer?"

"What to do?"

"Oh, jest to show a gentleman through the mountings, an' pint out the
hants o' the wild birds. 'Pears this Perfessor, as they call him, is
stoppin' over to the Spring Hotel, an' the landlord, Poke Dickson, axed
me ef I knowed any o' the neighborhood boys who would like the job.
Somenn what wuz a first-rate shot, an' 'quainted with all the trails.
Yaas, I tole him Wash Saunders am the very chap, ef you kin git him.
But, I added, the Saunders air pooty ticky, an' Wash, mebbe, won't
relish playin' pinter-dorg to any one. For, sez I, his pappy am a
forehanded man, who keeps his fambly comf'ble. He hez a good corn 'n'
tobaccy field, 'n' the gyurls hez a kyarpet on the best room, 'n'
curtings to the windys, 'n' everything mighty slick. Still, sez I,
'twon't do no harm to ax, so here I be."

"Sho, Tim, you know I ain't so ticky as that. Dunno but I'd like it
first rate, for I'm strivin' to get a new rifle. Granddaddy's old 'Sally
Blazer,' as he used to name it, is about played out."

"Waal, naow, then, here's your chance, 'n' I'm real tickled. But I must
be ajoggin'. G'lang, Juniper! Shall I tell Poke you will go over 'n' see
the Perfessor?"

"Yes, I will, this very evenin'"; which the boy did, and returned
jubilant. "It's a snap, a reg'lar snap," he declared to the group of
brothers and sisters who ran to meet him. "Professor Stuart is real
quality, an' no mistake. He's an orni--orni--waal, I don't rightly
remember the name, but he's plumb crazy about birds, 'n' comed here a
purpose to see those what live in West Virginia. It's a curous notion,
but he's nice, 'n' so is Mis' Stuart, though she lies on a sofy most of
the time, and looks drefful white 'n' pindlin'."

"Air there any chilluns?" inquired Jemima Ca