the embers and scooping up a small coal; "Well, Mark Shuff and a
friend of his by the name of Westcott, had a shanty one winter over on
Tupper's Lake; they were trappin' martin, and mink, and muskrat, and
wolves, when they could get one. They shantied on the outlet, just at
the foot of the lake, below the high rocky bluff round which the
little bay there sweeps. There wasn't any house then nearer than
Harriets Town, down by the Lower Saranac; but there was a company of
lumbermen having a shanty up towards the head of the lake, near where
the Bog River enters. Mark, one cold winter's morning, started on an
errand to the lumber shanty I speak of, calculatin' to return the same
evening. The lake was frozen over, and he took to the ice, as being
the nearest and best travelin'. The winter had set in airly, and the
snow had lain deep for months, and the game of the woods had got
pretty well starved out. Mark did'nt take his rifle with him, thinkin'
of course that he would see no game on the ice worth shootin', and a
gun would only be an incumbrance to him. Well, he did his errand at
the shanties, and started for home. I don't know whether he took a
drop or not, but they generally keep a barrel of old rye in the lumber
shanties, and my opinion is that Mark was invited to take a horn, in
which case, I'm bold to say, the horn was taken.

"However that may be, Mark started for home along in the afternoon,
and took to the ice, as he did when he went up in the morning.
Everything went right until he got within may be a mile of home, when
he heard, from a point of land, a little to the left of him, a sharp,
fierce bark, and turning that way, he saw a great shaggy,
fierce-looking wolf trot out from behind a boulder and squat himself
down on his haunches, and eye him as if calculating the probabilities
of his making a good supper. While Mark was looking at him, feelin' a
little oneasy, he heard another sharp bark, and from a point just