"I ain't goin' ter leave him thar, though," stoutly declared the boy
who still held the rifle. "That thar fox's scalp an' his two ears
air wuth one whole dollar."

Tim remonstrated. "Look-a-hyar, Birt; ef ye try ter climb up this
hyar bluff, ye'll git yer neck bruk, sure."

Birt Dicey looked up critically. It was a rugged ascent of forty
feet or more to the narrow ledge where the red fox lay. Although
the face of the cliff was jagged, the rock greatly splintered and
fissured, with many ledges, and here and there a tuft of weeds or a
stunted bush growing in a niche, it was very steep, and would afford
precarious foothold. The sunset was fading. The uncertain light
would multiply the dangers of the attempt. But to leave a dollar
lying there on the fox's head, that the wolf and the buzzard might
dine expensively to-morrow!

"An' me so tried for money!" he exclaimed, thinking aloud.

Nate Griggs, who had not before spoken, gave a sudden laugh,--a dry,
jeering laugh.

"Ef all the foxes on the mounting war ter hold a pertracted meet'n,
jes' ter pleasure you-uns, thar wouldn't be enough scalps an' ears
'mongst 'em ter make up the money ye hanker fur ter buy a horse."

To buy a horse was the height of Birt's ambition. His mother was a
widow; and as an instance of the fact that misfortunes seldom come
singly, the horse on which the family depended to till their scanty
acres died shortly after his owner. And so, whenever the spring