with a sly grin. "Ye see, I was lookin' 'em all over, tryin' to make
up my mind which one of the gals I should pick for my partner through
life. And Sally was about the best of the bunch."

"Why didn't you pick her then?" asked Tom.

"She got in her hand pickin' first," chuckled Jerry. "And she picked
a feller from town. Fac' is, I was so long a-pickin' that I never got
nary wife at all, so have lived all my life an old bachelder."

"But let's hear about Sally and the bear," proposed Ruth, eagerly,
knowing what a resourceful story-teller Long Jerry was.

"Come Jerry, sit down and let's have it," agreed Mr. Cameron, and
the party of young folk drew up chairs, before the fire. Long Jerry
squatted down in his usual manner on the hearth, and the story was
begun.




CHAPTER XVII

LONG JERRY'S STORY


"Ol' man Bennett," began Jerry Todd, "warn't a native of this neck
o' woods. He come up from Jarsey, or some such place, and bringed his
fam'bly with him, and Sally Bennett. She was his sister, and as he
was a pretty upstandin' man, so was she a tall, well-built gal. She