attention to his father's unctuous and sonorous sentences, though
really, as Grant could see, engaged in flicking kernels of corn at his
brother in another corner. His jeans trousers were, as a result of his
present attitude, drawn tightly across that portion of his body nearest
to the window, and never fairer mark was offered savage spear! Not a
moment did the avenger hesitate. He poised his weapon, took deadly
aim, and lunged!

Never was quiet of a summer morning broken more suddenly and
startlingly. A yell so loud, so wild, so blood-curdling, ascended from
within the farm-house, that even nature seemed to shiver for a moment.
Then came the rush of feet and the clamor of many voices. Out of doors
ran all the household, the father included, so appalling had been Alf's
cry of apparently mortal agony, to learn the source of all the trouble.
There was nothing to be seen. Not a living being was in sight. It
dawned upon the elders gradually that nothing very serious had
occurred, and the father and the females of the household went in to
breakfast, the exercises of the morning not being now renewed, while
Alf and his brother scoured the wood. Upon one leg of Alf's jeans
trousers appeared an artistic dab of red. He had been wounded, and for
days the sitting down and the uprising of him would be acts of care.

And where was the South Sea islander? Almost as he lunged he had
leaped backward around the corner of the house and run for the covered
ditch. Once in that covert, he did not "lurk" to any great extent. He
crawled away as rapidly as his hands and knees would carry him,
reasoning that the boys would, upon finding no one near the house, run
naturally to the wood in search of the enemy. They never thought of
the old ditch, though, later in the day, the thing occurred to them,
and an examination of the sandy bottom told the story. The edge of the