d the forest, black and vast, the trail
leading straight into it. Then, a little farther down toward the right
he saw something that made his heart leap exultantly. Rising straight
up, a lavender and silver lily against the pallid saffron of the east,
soared a slender smoke. That smoke, his trained eyes told him, came
from a camp chimney; and he realized that the lumbermen had moved up
to him from the far-off head of the Ottanoonsis.

MacPhairrson's Happy Family

I

It was over a little footbridge one had to pass to visit MacPhairrson
and his family, a little, lofty, curiously constructed footbridge,
spanning a narrow but very furious torrent. At the middle of the
bridge was a gate--or, rather, a door--of close and strong wire mesh;
and at this point, door and bridge together were encircled by a
_chevaux-de-frise_ of woodwork with sharp, radiating points of heavy
telegraph wire. With the gate shut, nothing less than a pair of wings
in good working order could carry one over to the steep little island
in mid-torrent which was MacPhairrson's home and citadel.

Carried caressingly in the hollow of his left arm, the Boy held a
brown burlap bag, which wriggled violently at times and had to be
soothed into quiescence. When the Boy arrived at the door in the
bridge, which he found locked, he was met by two strange hosts who
peered at him wisely through the meshes of the door. One of these was
a large black and tan dog, with the long body, wavy hair, drooping
silken ears, and richly feathered tail of a Gordon setter, most
grotesquely supported, at a height of not more than eight inches from
the ground, by the little bow-legs of a dachshund. This freakish and
sinister-looking animal gazed at the visitor with eyes of sagacious
welcome, tongue hanging amiably half out, and tail gently waving. He
approved of this particular Boy, though boys in general he regarded as
nuisances to be tolerated rather than encouraged. The other host,
standing close beside the dog as if on guard, and scrutinizing the
visitor with little, pale, shrewdly non-committal eyes, was a
half-grown black and white pig.

Through the gate the Boy murmured familiar greetings to its warders
while he pulled a wooden handle which set an old brown cow-bell above
the door jangling hoarsely. The summer air was full to brimming over
with sound--with the roar of the furious little torrent beneath, with
the thunder of the sheet of cream and amber water falli