in the boat by yourself?"

"No; I took Juno with me. She pulls very well, Ready."

"She is a handy girl, William. Well, we have had our survey, and there
will be plenty of work for you and me, I can tell you; I don't think we
can bring everything round in a week; so I suppose to-morrow we had
better be off."

"Well, I like boating better than ditching, I can tell you, Ready,"
replied William. "I shan't be sorry to leave that work to my father."

"I suppose it must fall to him; as he will, of course, prefer staying
with Mrs Seagrave and the children."

As soon as they were at the tents, Ready hung up the pig to the cross
pole of the tent in which he and William and Mr Seagrave slept, and
having propped the muskets up against the side of the tent, he went with
William to get his knife and some stretchers of wood to open the pig
with. While he and William were away, Caroline and Tommy came out to
look at it, and Tommy, after telling Caroline how glad he was that they
were to have roast pig for dinner, took up one of the muskets, and said,
"Now, Caroline, I'll shoot the pig."

"Oh! Tommy, you must not touch the gun," cried Caroline; "papa will be
very angry."

"I don't care," replied Tommy. "I'll show you how to shoot the pig."

"Don't, Tommy," cried Caroline; "if you do, I'll go and tell mamma."

"Then I'll shoot you," replied Tommy, trying to point the musket at her.

Caroline was so frightened, that she ran away as fast as she could, and
then Tommy, using all his strength, contrived to get the musket up to
his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.

It so happened that Tommy had taken up Mr Seagrave's musket, which had
not been fired, and when he pulled the trigger it went off, and as he
did not hold it tight to his shoulder, it recoiled, and hit him with the
butt right on his face, knocking out two of his teeth, besides making
his nose bleed very fast.

Tommy was so astonished and frightened at the musket going off, and the
blow which he received, that he gave a loud yell, dropped the musket,
and ran to the tent where his father and mother were, just as they had
started up and had rushed out at hearing the report.

When Mrs Seagrave saw Tommy all covered with blood, and screaming so
loud, she was so alarmed that she could not stand, and fell fainting in
Mr Seagrave's arms. Ready and William, on hearing the musket go off,
had run as fast as they could, fearing that some accident had happened;
and while M