ack convulsive, an'
thar he is as dead as Santa Anna.

"'What sort of a game is this, anyhow?' says Dan Boggs, who, while we
stands thar, has been pawin' over the Red Dog man's rifle. 'Looks like
this vivacious party's plumb locoed. Yere's his hind-sights wedged up
for a thousand yards, an' he's been a-shootin' of cartridges with a
hundred an' twenty grains of powder into 'em. Between the sights an'
the jump of the powder, he's shootin' plumb over Cherokee an' aimin'
straight at him.'

"'Nellie,' says Enright, lookin' remorseful at the girl, who colors up
an' begins to cry agin, 'did you cold-deck this yere Red Dog sport this
a-way?'

"'I'm 'frald,' sobs Nell, 'he gets Cherokee; so I slides over when
you-alls is waitin' an' fixes his gun some.'

"'Which I should shorely concede you did,' says Enright. 'The way that
Red Dog gent manipulates his weepon shows he knows his game; an' except
for you a-settin' things up on him, I'm powerful afraid he'd spoiled
Cherokee a whole lot.'

"'Well, gents,' goes on Enright, after thinkin' a while, 'I reckons
we-alls might as well drink on it. Hist'ry never shows a game yet, an'
a woman in it, which is on the squar', an' we meekly b'ars our burdens
with the rest.'"

JEAN MICHAUD'S LITTLE SHIP

By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

Reprinted, by permission of the author, from "The Saturday Evening
Post." All rights reserved.

Patiently, doggedly, yet with the light in his eyes that belongs to the
enthusiast and the dreamer, young Jean Michaud had worked at it.
Throughout the winter he had hewed the seasoned timbers and the
diminutive hackmatack "knees" from the swamp far back in the Equille
Valley; and whenever the sledding was good with his yoke of black oxen
he had hauled his materials to the secret place of his shipbuilding by
the winding shore of a deep tidal tributary of the Port Royal. In the
spring he had laid the keel and riveted securely to it the squared
hackmatack knees. It was unusual to use such sturdy and unmanageable
timbers as these hackmatack knees for a craft so small as this which
the young Acadian was building; but Jean Michaud's thoughts were long
thoughts and went far ahead. He was putting all his hopes as well as
all his scant patrimony into this little ship; and he was resolved that
it should be strong to carry his fortunes.

Through all the green and blue and golden Acadian summer he had toiled
joyously at bending the thin planks and riveting