called upon to face hirelings of the King.

"Even a lad like you can bear a rifle, and your mother will spare you
from the farm for drill," Allen said, with his hand again on Enoch's
shoulder, before riding away. "I shall expect to see Jonas Harding's boy
at Bennington when word is sent round for the first drill." And Enoch,
his heart beating high with pride at this notice, promised to gain his
mother's permission if possible.

Bolderwood had already gone, and Lot Breckenridge detained Enoch until
after the dinner hour. Lot would have kept him all night, but the latter
knew his mother would be anxious to see him safe home, and he started an
hour or two before sunset, on the trail which Bolderwood and he had
followed early in the morning. Being one of the last to leave James
Breckenridge's house, he traveled the forest alone. But he had no
feeling of fear. The trails and by-paths were as familiar to him as the
streets of his hometown are to a boy of to-day. And the numberless
sounds which reached his ears were distinguished and understood by the
pioneer boy. The hoarse laugh of the jay as it winged its way home over
the tree-tops, the chatter of the squirrel in the hollow oak, the sudden
scurry of deer in the brake, the barking of a fox on the hillside, were
all sounds with which Enoch Harding was well acquainted.

As he crossed a heavily shadowed creek, a splash in the water attracted
his particular attention and he crept to the brink in time to see a pair
of sleek dark heads moving swiftly down the stream. Soon the heads
stopped, bobbed about near a narrow part of the stream, and finally came
out upon the bank, one on either side. The trees stood thick together
here, and both animals attacked a straight, smooth trunk standing near
the creek, their sharp teeth making the chips fly as they worked. They
were a pair of beavers beginning a dam for the next winter. Enoch marked
the spot well. About January he would come over with Lot, or with Robbie
Baker, stop up the mouth of the beaver's tunnel, break in the dome of
his house, and capture the family. Beaver pelts were a common article of
barter in a country where real money was a curiosity.

But watching the beavers delayed Enoch and it was growing dark in the
forest when he again turned his face homewards. He knew the path well
enough--the runway he traveled was so deep that he could scarce miss it
and might have followed it with his eyes blindfolded,--but he quickened