ke Halstead so far. We fell asleep
in anything but a kindly mood toward each other; I had remained awake
till Halse was snoring, being a little afraid of him, to tell the truth.
Even after he was asleep, he kept starting and muttering, he had become
so much excited.

But for this incident I think that Theodora would have won her way, and
Halse would have been invited to go; she was very persevering, to carry
her point, when she thought a thing was right.

But now we were so embittered that Halstead declared next morning he
would not go with us, if we asked him.

"But you will all be sorry for this before you get back!" he blurted
out;--words which made me feel uneasy, for they seemed to imply a threat
of some sort. I said nothing about it, however, not believing that he
really would do anything.

That afternoon we finished picking the apples; and the Old Squire said
that the hired men could gather up those on the ground, for home use,
subsequently. Since we were going on a trip, he thought that we had
better go at once, before the weather turned colder. The fact was, that
Ad had succeeded in interesting Gramp in the trip. The old gentleman
owned a number of lots of wild land, up in the "great woods." There had
been stories that there was silver in some of the mountains there;
Addison often talked about finding mines; and as he already knew quite a
good deal about the different kinds of rocks and ores, the Old Squire
thought that he might possibly discover something of value.

That evening we were busy with our preparations for the trip; and I do
not remember seeing Halstead at all; Catherine and Tom Edwards came
over, and Willis Murch a little later, to ask about taking his gun.
Addison thought that one gun would be enough to carry; for we found out,
as every camping party does, that our luggage would prove burdensome and
must be reduced to the least possible weight. We wanted to take, in
addition to four "comforters" and two blankets, only what things we
could pack in two common bushel baskets which are convenient to carry,
either on one's shoulder, or for two persons where one lends a hand at
either ear of the basket. In one basket we packed our tinware,
frying-pan, tin dippers, plates, etc., along with four or five loaves of
bread, sugar, coffee, salt, pepper, etc., and four dozen eggs. In the
other was stowed potatoes, pork, a little bag of coarse corn meal for
mush, butter and a score other little articles tha