lline.

"Yaas, two. An awful pooty gyurl, with eyes like brown stars, an' all
rigged out in white, same as an angel, with big, puffy sleeves; an' the
jolliest small boy you ever see. He's a downright little man, though
he's only five year old, an' he's curls down to his waist."

"Waal, then, sence they were so friendly, I s'pose you came to some
bargain?" said Monongahela.

"Sartain; an' I'm to meet Mr. Stuart to-morrer mornin' at the
cross-roads an' show-him a red-bird's nest. He wants to collect eggs an'
live specimens."

When, then, the Professor rode up to the appointed rendezvous on the
following day, he found Wash awaiting him, "Sally Blazer" in hand, and a
powder-horn and shot-pouch slung from his neck by a leather strap. His
feet, too, were encased in moccasins that his footfall might not startle
the shy creatures of the wildwood.

"Ah, my lad, I see you understand the business," remarked the
ornithologist, with an approving nod, "and I predict we shall be fine
friends."

Thus, too, it proved and for both. That was the beginning of a month of
happy, halcyon days spent in the open; a perpetual picnic, scaling the
rough but ever-enchanting hills, wandering through the beautiful solemn
pine forests, following Nature's most winsome things to their chosen
haunts, and always breathing in the resinous health-giving mountain air.
Sometimes, when the tramp was not to be too long a one, small Royal
accompanied his father, gay and joyous as a dancing grig, and looking
like a little Highland princeling in his outing costume of Scotch plaid,
proudly flourishing a tiny wooden gun.

"We are good chums, ain't we, Wash?" he would say, in his precocious
friendly little way--"good chums, going hunting together. But we mustn't
kill things just for fun. That is naughty. Papa says food or science is
the only excuse. He never takes but one egg from a nest, and would
rather snare birds than shoot them."

Occasionally, too, pretty Jean would join the party at a given point,
driving over with a dainty lunch from the hotel, and then there would be
a merry out-door meal in some cozy green nook, near to one of the cold
clear mountain springs which furnished the purest and most refreshing
beverage.

And what a revelation this experience was to poor little Washington
Beauregard! Not only the bits of knowledge he picked up from the
ornithologist's learned discourses on the gorgeous Virginia-cardinals
and orioles, the red-capped woo