shoot
'em? Where? Can I go and see 'em?"

Jack was beginning to see the hopelessness of pursuing the horse-thief
that night, or with any help to to be had in that region; and he now
turned his thoughts to getting the buggy home.

"Yes, boy; come with me," he said.

The boy shouted and switched his stick at the cattle browsing by the
wayside, and started them on a smart trot down the road, then hastened
with Jack to the spot where the wagon and game had been left, guarded by
Lion.

But Jack had another object in view than simply to gratify the lad's
curiosity.

"If you will hold up the shafts and pull a little, I'll push behind, and
we can take the buggy through the woods. After we get it up out of this
hollow, and well into the road, it will be down-hill the rest of the
way."

"You want to make a horse of me, do ye?" cried the boy. "I wasn't born
in a stable!"

"Neither was I," said Jack. "But I don't object to doing a horse's work.
I'll pull in the shafts."

"O good!" screamed the boy, making his switch whistle about his head.
"And I'll get on the seat and drive!" And he made a spring at the wagon.

But Lion had something to say about that. Having been placed on guard,
and not yet relieved, he would permit no hand but his master's to touch
anything in his charge. A frightful growl made the boy recoil and go
backwards over the dead deer.

"Here, Lion! down with you!" cried Jack, as the excited dog was pouncing
on the supposed intruder.

The boy scrambled to his feet, and was starting to run away, in great
terror, when Jack, fearing to lose him, called out,--

"Don't run! He may chase you if you do. Now he knows you are my friend,
you are safe, only stay where you are."

"Blast his pictur'!" exclaimed the boy. "He's a perfect cannibal! What
does anybody want to keep such a savage critter as that for?"

"I had told him to watch. Now he is all right. Come!"

"Me? Travel with that dog? I wouldn't go with him," the boy declared,
meaning to make the strongest possible statement, "if 't was a million
miles, and the road was full of sugar-candy!" And he backed off warily.

[Illustration: UP-HILL WORK.]

Jack got over the difficulty by sending the dog on before; and finally,
by an offer of money which would purchase a reasonable amount of
sugar-candy,--enough to pave the short road to happiness, for a boy of
thirteen,--induced him to help lift the deer into the buggy, and then to
go behind and push.

Th