"Here! oh! oh! murder!" cried the voice, now more muffled than ever, while the old man struggled violently to get out. "Oh! oh!"

"Good by!" screamed Jack, holding him, and thrusting in more sticks. "You may have what's in the log, and I'll take the basket!" "Help! ho! I'm killed!" said the voice, growing fainter and fainter.

"And buried!' Jack yelled back, laughing with wild excitement. "But you kick well, for all that!" And in went more rubbish about the old man's heels. "How do ye like your bargain? You'll have plenty of time to count your dollars before I send Pipkin over to help you out."

And, having got the old man wedged so tightly into the log that he could not even kick, Jack, inspired with extraordinary strength for the occasion, caught up his basket of coin and started to run, followed by Lion.

CHAPTER X.

RUNNING quickly behind walls and fences, the Huswick boys made a rapid raid upon Peternot's melon-patch, and left it loaded with spoils.

"Say, Dock!" said Hank (nickname for Henry), skulking behind some bushes, "le's put for Chatford's orchard, and scatter rines by the way, so

if we 're tracked the old man 'll think 't was the deacon's boys hooked his melons."

"Go ahead!" said Dock (nickname for Jehoshaphat), carrying two fine ripe melons on his left arm while he dug into one of them with a jack-knife in his right hand. Stoop, and keep clus to the fence! "

66

"No danger, old man's gone to meetin'," said Cub, whose real name was Richard, his odd shape (he was ludicrously short and fat) having probably suggested the nickname.

"Me an' Cub can go without stoopin'," giggled Hod, the youngest (christened Horace). "See Hank! he looks like a well-sweep!"

And indeed the second of the boys, who was as wonderfully tall and lank as Cub was short and thick, bore no slight resemblance to that ornament of country door-yards.

"Hanged if one o' mine ain't a green one!" exclaimed Tug (short for Dwight), dashing to the ground a large watermelon, the sight of which in ruins would have made old Peternot's heart ache.

"Guess we made a clean sweep of all the ripe ones," said Cub. "No, you don't!" as Tug offered to relieve him of one of his three. "I never had my fill o' melons yit, though I've "— cramming his mouth while he continued to talk "been in the squire's patch much as once afore now."

"You never had your fill of anything, I believe, Cub!" said Hod, with his usual giggle. "Remember when we went there in the night last year?" "Night's no time to go for melons," said Cub. "Ye can't tell a ripe one 'thout cuttin' into 't."

"Yes ye can," said Tug; "smell on 't. That's the best way to tell a mushmelon."

"Cub's terrible petic'lar about slashin' the ol' man's whoppers, all to once," said Horace.

"Of course, for if we cut a green one we sha' n't find it ripe next time we go," Cub explained. "Jest look! we're makin' a string o' rines all the way from Peternot's to the deacon's orchard!"

"There now, boys," said Hank, "throw what rines ye got down here by the brook, an' stop eatin' till we git to the woods."

Their course had been westward, until they reached the orchard. They now took the line of stone-wall which divided the squire's land from the deacon's, and which led northward to the corner of Peternot's wood-lot, — Hank following Dock, Cub following Hank, Tug after Cub, and Hod bringing up the rear. In this order they entered the woods, and were hastening to find a secluded spot where they could sit and enjoy their melons, when suddenly Dock stopped.

"Thought I heard somebody," he said to Hank, coming up.

"So did I. Lay low, boys! Git behind this log!"

Down went boys and melons in a heap, each of the brothers, as he arrived, tumbling himself and his load with the rest. There they lay, only Hank's long, crane-like neck being stretched up over the log to reconnoitre; but presently even he thought it time to duck, and threw himself flat upon the ground with the rest.

Keep dark!" he whispered; "it's that Jack Hazard, that lives to the deacon's! him an' his big dog!"

Jack indeed it was, who had been too intently occupied in fastening Peternot into the log to notice the approach of the Huswick boys. He had thought of them, to be sure, but had supposed they would return through the woods as they went.

He was now running as fast as he could with his basket of treasure, directing his course towards the orchard, but keeping a little to the right in order to reach a low length of fence, over which he intended to climb, and then betake himself to the smoother ground of the pasture. A log lay in his way. Lion, growling, drew back from it-too late. Jack, in his headlong haste, sprang upon it, and leaped down on the other side, alighting on a frightful heap of legs and heads and watermelons. He jumped on Hank, tripped against Cub, and, falling, spilt his basket of rattling coin all over Tug and Dock and Hod. Thereupon the heap rose up as one man, astonishing poor Jack much as if he had stumbled upon a band of Indians lying in ambush.

"What in thunder! - Jerushy mighty!-half-dollars!" ejaculated Cub and Dock and Tug; while Hank stretched himself up to his full height, and Hod fell vindictively upon Jack.

"Le' me go!" screamed Jack, taking his knee out of a muskmelon, and shaking off his assailant.

"That's my melon," said Hod, diving at him again furiously, "an' you've smashed it!"

He was butting and striking with blind rage, when Lion bounced upon him, and actually had him by the collar of his coat, dragging and shaking him with terrible growls, when Tug and Cub and Dock - one catching Hod by the heels, one Jack, and the other Lion-disentangled the combatants. "Where j'e git all this money?" demanded Cub.

"Found it, and I'm carrying it home," said Jack, scrambling to pick up his scattered half-dollars.

"He's murdered somebody for it!" cried Hank, peering in the direction of the hollow log. "I heered him! Hold on to him, boys!" and he ran to make discoveries.

66 Don't ye do that!" said Jack, as Hod rushed to help him pick up the coin. "My dog will have hold of ye again! Watch, Lion!"

"Take that out o' yer pocket, Hod!" said Cub, seizing his youngest brother by the neck. "Melons is fair game, but now ye 're stealin'. None o' that while I'm around!"

Hank, meanwhile, had reached the hollow log, beside which the hat and cane were; when, hearing groans from within and seeing a pair of boots sticking out, he began at once to remove the rubbish from the opening. Dock and Tug went to his assistance; and, each laying hold of a leg while Hank pulled energetically at a coat-tail, poor old Peternot, half smothered, fearfully rumpled, and frightfully cross, was hauled out by the heels horizontally.

7. T. Trowbridge.

IT

The Matterhorn.

T was our first meeting at the Professor's after his summer vacation, and he had been telling us about his visit to the White Mountains. "What's the use of mountains, any way?" said Croll Wagner, who always takes the most prosaic views of things.

"They 're good to climb," replied Cale Betson, in his spirited way. "You'd think so, if you had ever been to the top of Mount Washington, as the Professor and I have."

"When were you there?" asked the Professor.

66 A year ago last June.”

"And you climbed the mountain ?"

"Well, I might have done it, but you see," said Cale, blushing, "they 've got a railroad to the top now, and so what's the particular use of footing it? Going up by steam is only an improved sort of climbing."

"We Americans carry our improvements everywhere," remarked the Professor, with a smile. "I can remember when there was only a footpath, and hardly that, on Mount Washington. Then there was a bridle-path over the rocks and around the edges of points and ridges. I made my second ascent on an Indian pony, from Crawford's Notch. The next time I went up in a wagon from the Glen, on the other side of the mountain; and this year I made the trip by Caleb's improved method."

"On foot-pony-back-wagon-road — railroad; I wonder," said I, “how long before one can go up by balloon? Would you call that climbing, Cale?"

The Professor answered for him. "Mountain climbing, our young friend will have to admit, is quite another thing. What would you say to the Alps, Caleb? How would you like to try your legs on Mont Blanc? No railroad there! No wagon-track, no footpath even; but up you go, over glaciers, amid toppling avalanches which the faintest jar, perhaps the sound of your voice, may bring down,-up and on, into the clouds, above the clouds, to regions of eternal snow! How would you fancy scaling those icy peaks, where a slip or a misstep may send you whirling down precipices to crags thousands of feet below? How would you like camping out up there in that arctic cold?"

"Do people do that?" asked Abel Montey, with a shudder.
"Yes, every year, on Mont Blanc and other peaks of the Alps."
"What makes 'em do it?" Croll was anxious to know.

"The mere love of adventure inspires some; the love of science, others, - they wish to study the ways of nature in those sublime regions; and still others go because it is the fashion. Some are impelled by all these motives, and perhaps still more by the love of fame. What superhuman efforts have been made by Arctic explorers, in order that it might be said that they had approached one degree nearer the north pole than anybody before them! With just such feelings men have striven to be the first to climb the loftiest mountain summits, to be able to say, 'I have stood where the hardiest and most daring explorers have never been able to set foot!'"

"But is n't it dangerous?" said Abel.

"To be sure; there would be little glory in it if it were not. Every year accidents happen, sometimes frightful ones. But even these are not always fatal. An English traveller- Mr. Edward Whymper, in his 'Scrambles among the Alps' - relates how he once fell nearly two hundred feet." "Was that on Mont Blanc ?"

"No, on the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains of the Alps, though not the highest, for Mont Blanc towers over all. Mont Blanc is