d encouraging jeers Baldy departed, carrying the bundle
victoriously. He had not more than crossed the bridge, however,
when the watchers on the island saw a slender black head wriggle
out from one end of the bundle, dart upward behind his left arm,
and seize the man viciously by the ear. With a yell Baldy grabbed
the head, and held it securely in his great fist till the Boy
ran to his rescue. When James Edward's bill was removed from
Baldy's bleeding ear, his darting, furious head tucked back into
the blanket, the Boy said--

"Now, Baldy, that was just your own fault for not keeping tight hold.
You can't blame James Edward for biting you!"

"Sure, no!" responded Baldy, cheerfully. "I don't blame him a mite. I
brag on the spunk of him. Him an' me'll git on all right."

James Edward gone, the excitement was over. The Boy picked up the two
big white cats, Melindy and Jim, and placed them in the arms of old
Billy Smith, where they settled themselves, looking about with an air
of sleepy wisdom. From smallest kittenhood the smell of a homespun
shirt had stood to them for every kind of gentleness and shelter, so
they saw no reason to find fault with the arms of Billy Smith. By this
time old Butters, the woodchuck, disturbed at the scattering of the
Family, had retired in a huff to the depths of his little barrel by
the doorstep. The Boy clapped an oat-bag over the end of the barrel,
and tied it down. Then he went into the cabin and slipped another bag
over the head of the unsuspecting Bones, who fluffed all his feathers
and snapped his fierce beak like castanets. In two minutes he was tied
up so that he could neither bite nor claw.

"That was slick!" remarked Red Angus, who had hitherto taken no part
in the proceedings. He and the rest of the hands had followed in hope
of further excitement.

"Well, then, Angus, will you help me home? Will you take the barrel,
and see that Butters doesn't gnaw out on the way?"

Red Angus picked up the barrel and carried it carefully in front of
him, head up, that the sly old woodchuck might not steal a march on
him. Then the Boy picked up Bones in his oat-bag, and closed the cabin
door. As the party left the island with loud tramping of feet on the
little bridge, the young fox crept slyly from behind the cabin, and
eyed them through cunningly narrowed slits of eyes. At last he was
going to have the island all to himself; and he set himself to dig a
burrow directly under the doorstep, w