coin worth $5.00}

"I haven't seen that ere crittur now"--Peter always spoke
of the tree as if it had animal life--"these three years. We
think he doesn't like the steamboats. The very last time I
seed the old chap he was a-goin' up afore a smart
norwester, and we was a-comin' down with the wind in our
teeth, when I made out the 'Jew,' about a mile, or, at
most, a mile and a half ahead of us, and right in our track.
I remember that I said to myself, says I, 'Old fellow, we'll
get a sight of your countenance this time.' I suppose you
know, sir, that the 'Jew' has a face just like a human?"

"I did not know that; but what became of the tree?"

"Tree," answered Peter, shaking his head, "why, can't we
cut a tree down in the woods, saw it and carve it as we
will, and make it last a hundred years? What become of
the tree, sir;--why, as soon as the 'Jew' saw we was a-
comin' so straight upon him, what does the old chap do but
shift his helm, and make for the west shore. You never
seed a steamer leave sich a wake, or make sich time. If he
went half a knot, he went twenty!"

This little episode rather shook Fuller's faith in Peter's
accuracy; but it did not prevent his making an
arrangement by which he and the old man were to take a
cruise in quest of the tree, after having fruitlessly
endeavored to discover in what part of the lake it was just
then to be seen.