winding Oswegatchie, and the
distant blue hills. If the month happens to be August, the traveler may
hear the cheerful hum of busy industry, the swinging cradles of the
harvesters or the steady roll of the reaper. Upon a day, late in this
richest of summer months--August--in the year of our Lord 1854, Willard
and his uncle Henry were slowly wending their way towards
Fullerville--the former with his ox-team and the latter with a spanking
span of horses. The beasts of burden by their drooping heads and slow
pace evinced the fact that the loads of ore they were drawing were
unusually heavy, and this, combined with the sultry atmosphere, was
telling upon the strength of even such powerful beasts as they.

Willard, as usual, was seated upon the top of his load, and, as they
neared the bridge, despite his familiarity with every detail of the
scene, a sense of its exquisite beauty took possession of him, and, for
a moment, he forgot that he was driving an ox-team. For a moment he was
oblivious to the fact that it takes all a driver's care and skill to
prevent mischief whenever a thirsty ox obtains a glimpse of water upon a
summer's day. As they neared the bridge, the fevered eyes of the cattle
caught sight of the limpid stream away down below, and, just as a cry of
warning from his uncle recalled the boy to a sense of the deadly peril
of his position, the cattle made an oblique plunge over the edge of the
bank with two tons of iron-ore in lumps varying from five pounds to
fifty, pouring a huge and deadly hail over their reckless heads. With
rare presence of mind for a boy of his age, the instant he heard his
uncle's warning cry, Willard realized the situation and jumped sideways
from the wagon. As he did so, his hat fell off and rolled a short
distance away. At the same moment a lump of ore, weighing not less than
one-hundred pounds, fell upon it and crushed it so deeply into the
ground that it was completely hidden from view. Many months afterwards,
some boys digging for fish-bait found the hat buried there, and returned
to the village with a tale of some possible and unknown murder,
committed when or by whom no one could tell.

[Illustration: Tragic Experience With An Ox-team.]

As for the boy himself, he escaped with only a scratch or two and a few
bruises, but that he escaped with his life or with sound limbs was
almost a miracle; and, as his big-hearted uncle picked him up, he hugged
the lad as one snatched from the ver