hastening. I showed him that the path he was treading led to
destruction, and he left it, as he said, forever. He apprenticed
himself to a useful trade, and is now an intelligent mechanic. Out
of his time, an industrious, sober youth of two and twenty, supporting
by his industry, his mother and sister in comfort and respectability.
He heard of my sickness, and on Wednesday morning called to see me,
proffering his services as a nurse and watchman, prompted by gratitude
for the past. I declined his kindness for the present, as I told him
casually of the dog whose midnight barking was killing me. He called
again on Thursday morning. The barking had ceased. He inquired if I
had been troubled with the yelping of that senseless cur, and I
answered truly that I had not, that I had slept soundly, and woke with
a softened pulse and a cooled brain.

"'Well,' said he, 'I thought you would rest easier. I looked into the
yard as I came along, and saw a dead dog lying there. I thought may be
he had barked himself to death.'

"I did not at the time take in the full meaning, the hidden import of
his words. I dropped away into slumber, and dreamed of the dog that
barked himself to death. I saw him vanish by piecemeal at each
successive bark, until nothing but his jaws were left, and as his last
bark was uttered, these, too, vanished away, and then all was still.

"I awoke, and thought that a dose of 'dog-buttons,' or a taste of
strychnine, administered with a tempting bit of cold steak, or a piece
of fresh lamb, or a bone of mutton carefully dropped in his way, might
have aided the operation. Be that as it may, whatever of debt may
have existed between my young friend and myself for past kind it is
all wiped out by the news he brought me, that a 'dead dog lay in the
yard over the way.'"

CHAPTER VIII.

STONY BROOK--A GOOD TIME WITH THE TROUT--RACKETT RIVER--TUPPER'S
LAKE--A QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED.

The next morning we started down Stony Brook, towards the Rackett
River, intending to pitch our tents at night on the banks of Tupper's
Lake, twenty-three miles distant. Before leaving the Spectacle Ponds,
we visited a little island at the north end of the middle pond,
containing perhaps half an acre. This island has a few Norway pines
upon it, is of a loose sandy soil, and at the highest portion is some
twenty feet above the level of the water. It is a great resort for
turtle in the season of depositing their eggs. We fo