stranger still, that he should have mounted this queer relic of days
so long gone by, and thus discovered that peculiar object under the
dead tree. He began to think he had been led here for a purpose.
Now Rufe was not so good a boy as to be on the continual lookout for
rewards of merit. On the contrary, the day of reckoning meant with
him the day of punishment. He had heard recounted an unpleasant
superstition that when the red sunsets were flaming round the
western mountains, and the valleys were dark and drear, and the
abysses and gorges gloomed full of witches and weird spirits, Satan
himself might be descried, walking the crags, and spitting fire, and
deporting himself generally in such a manner as to cause great
apprehension to a small person who could remember so many sins as
Rufe could. His sins! they trooped up before his mental vision now,
and in a dense convocation crowded the encompassing wilderness.

Rufe felt that he must not leave this matter in uncertainty. He
must know whether that strange object under the tree could be
intended as a warning to him to cease in time his evil ways--
tormenting Towse, pulling Tennessee's hair, shirking the woodpile,
and squandering Birt's rifle balls. He even feared this might be a
notification that the hour of retribution had already come!

He scuttled off the platform, and began to swing himself from bough
to bough. He was nervous and less expert than when he had climbed
up the tree. He lost his grip once, and crashed from one branch to
another, scratching himself handsomely in the operation. The owl,
emboldened by his retreat, flew awkwardly down upon the scaffold,
and perched there, its head turned askew, and its great, round eyes
fixed solemnly upon him.