ters has missed you, MacPhairrson! He's bit
me twice, just because I wasn't you. There he is, poking his nose out
of his barrel."

The old woodchuck thought he had heard MacPhairrson's voice, but he
was not sure. He came out and sat up on his fat haunches, his nostrils
quivering with expectation. Then he caught sight of the familiar
limping form. With a little squeal of joy he scurried forward and fell
to clutching and clawing at his master's legs till MacPhairrson picked
him up. Whereupon he expressed his delight by striving to crowd his
nose into MacPhairrson's neck. At this moment the fox appeared from
hiding behind the cabin, and sat up, with ears cocked shrewdly and
head to one side, to take note of his master's return.

"Lord, how Carrots has growed!" exclaimed MacPhairrson, lovingly, and
called him to come. But the fox yawned in his face, got up lazily, and
trotted off to the other side of the island. MacPhairrson's face
fell.

"He's got no kind of a heart at all," said the Boy, soothing his
disappointment.

"He ain't no use to nobody," said MacPhairrson. "I reckon we'd better
let him go." Then he hobbled into the cabin to greet Bones, who
ruffled up his feathers at his approach, but recognized him and
submitted to being stroked.

Presently MacPhairrson straightened up on his crutches, turned, and
gulped down a lump in his throat.

"I reckon we'll be mighty contented here," said he, "me an' Stumpy,
an' Butters, an' Bones. But I _wisht_ as how I might git to have
Ananias-an'-Sapphira back along with us. I'm goin' to miss that there
bird a lot, fer all she was so ridiculous an' cantankerous. I s'pose,
now, you don't happen to know who's got her, do you?"

"I know she's got a good home!" answered the Boy, truthfully. "But I
don't know that I could tell you just where she is!"

At just this minute, however, there came a jangling of the gate bell,
and screeches of--

"Oh, by Gee! Jumpin' Jiminy! Oh, Boy! I want Pa!"

MacPhairrson's gaunt and grizzled face grew radiant. Nimbly he hobbled
to the door, to see the Boy already on the bridge, opening the gate.
To his amazement, in strode Black Angus the Boss, with the bright
green glitter of Ananias-and-Sapphira on his shoulder screeching
varied profanities--and whom at his heels but Ebenezer and the little
ring-tailed raccoon. In his excitement the old woodsman dropped one of
his crutches. Therefore, instead of going to meet his visitors, he
plumped down on t