his brother Charlie say. "I'll stake
my life that he will come home with flying colors, if you only give
him time. He's lost the trail somehow, and had to put up at some cabin
all night. Don't you worry about Sandy."

"But these Indian stories; I don't like them," said his father, with a
tinge of sadness in his voice.

Sandy could bear no more; so, flinging down his burden, he bounced
into the cabin with, "Oh, I'm all right! Safe and sound, but as hungry
as a bear."

The little party rushed to embrace the young adventurer, and, in their
first flush of surprise, nobody remembered to be severe with him for
his carelessness. Quite the hero of the hour, the lad sat on the table
and told them his tale, how he had lost his way, and how hospitably
and well he had been cared for at Fuller's.

"Fuller's!" exclaimed his uncle. "What in the world took you so far
off your track as Fuller's? You must have gone at least ten miles out
of your way."

"Yes, Uncle Charlie," said the boy, "it's just as easy to travel ten
miles out of the way as it is to go one. All you have to do is to get
your face in the wrong way, and all the rest is easy. Just keep
a-going; that's what I did. I turned to the right instead of to the
left, and for once I found that the right was wrong."

A burst of laughter from Oscar, who had been opening the sack that
held Sandy's purchases, interrupted the story.

"Just see what a hodgepodge of a mess Sandy has brought home! Tobacco,
biscuits, ginger, and I don't know what not, all in a pudding. It only
lacks milk and eggs to make it a cracker pudding flavored with ginger
and smoking-tobacco!" And everybody joined in the laugh that a glance
at Sandy's load called forth.

"Yes," said the blushing boy; "I forgot to tie the bag at both ends,
and the jouncing up and down of Younkins's old horse (dear me! wasn't
he a hard trotter!) must have made a mash of everything in the bag.
The paper of tobacco burst, and then I suppose the ginger followed;
the jolting of poor old 'Dobbin' did the rest. Ruined, daddy? Nothing
worth saving?"

Mr. Howell ruefully acknowledged that the mixture was not good to eat,
nor yet to smoke, and certainly not to make gingerbread of. So, after
picking out some of the larger pieces of the biscuits, the rest was
thrown away, greatly to Sandy's mortification.

"All of my journey gone for nothing," he said, with a sigh.

"Never mind, my boy," said his father, fondly; "since you have come