One day a bulky Government letter came. Dad looked surprised and pleased,
and how his hand trembled as he broke the seal! "THE DEEDS!" he said,
and all of us gathered round to look at them. Dave thought they were like
the inside of a bear-skin covered with writing.

Dad said he would ride to town at once, and went for Emelina.

"Could n't y' find her, Dad?" Dan said, seeing him return without the mare.

Dad cleared his throat, but did n't answer. Mother asked him.

"Yes, I FOUND her," he said slowly, "DEAD."

The crows had got her at last.

He wrapped the deeds in a piece of rag and walked.

There was nothing, scarcely, that he did n't send out from town, and Jimmy
Mulcahy and old Anderson many and many times after that borrowed our dray.

Now Dad regularly curses the deeds every mail-day, and wishes to Heaven
he had never got them.




Chapter IV.