ipe used
to inflate the balloon, and which looked very much like worms."

[Illustration: "As their bullets got to their highest point and began
to drop back, I reached out and caught them." _Chapter III._]

"But the chickens?" said the Twins. "What did they live on?"

The Baron blushed.

"I am sorry you asked that question," he said, his voice trembling
somewhat. "But I'll answer it if you promise never to tell anyone. It
was the only time in my life that I ever practised an intentional
deception upon any living thing, and I have always regretted it,
although our very lives depended upon it."

"What was it, Uncle Munch?" asked the Twins, awed to think that the
old warrior had ever deceived anyone.

"I took the egg shells and ground them into powder, and fed them to
the chickens. The poor creatures supposed it was corn-meal they were
getting," confessed the Baron. "I know it was mean, but what could I
do?"

"Nothing," said the Twins softly. "And we don't think it was so bad of
you after all. Many another person would have kept them laying eggs
until they starved, and then he'd have killed them and eaten them up.
You let them live."

"That may be so," said the Baron, with a smile that showed how
relieved his conscience was by the Twins' suggestion. "But I couldn't
do that you know, because they were pets. I had been brought up from
childhood with those chickens."

Then the Twins, jamming the Baron's hat down over his eyes, climbed
down from his lap and went to their play, strongly of the opinion
that, though a bold warrior, the Baron was a singularly kind,
soft-hearted man after all.

IV

SOME HUNTING STORIES FOR CHILDREN

The Heavenly Twins had been off in the mountains during their summer
holiday, and in consequence had seen very little of their good old
friend, Mr. Munchausen. He had written them once or twice, and they
had found his letters most interesting, especially that one in which
he told how he had killed a moose up in Maine with his Waterbury watch
spring, and I do not wonder that they marvelled at that, for it was
one of the most extraordinary happenings in the annals of the chase.
It seems, if his story is to be believed, and I am sure that none of
us who know him has ever had any reason to think that he would deceive
intentionally; it seems, I say, that he had gone to Maine for a week's
sport with an old army acquaintance of his, who had now become a guide
in that region. Unfortunat