statesmen matured. The wild horse had long since learned that the
creature man was as dangerous to it as were any of the fierce four-footed
animals which hunted it, and its scent was good and its pace was swift
and it went in herds and avoided doubtful places. Not so easy a task as
it might seem was that which Ab and Oak had resolved upon. There must be
some elaborate device to attain their end, but they were confident. They
had noted often what older hunters did, and they felt themselves as good
as anybody. They plotted long and earnestly and even made a mental
distribution of their quarry, deciding what should be done with its skin
and with its meat, far in advance of any determination upon a plan for
its capture and destruction. They were boys.

There was no objection from the parents. They knew that the boys must
learn to become hunters, and if the two were not now capable of taking
care of themselves in the wood, then they were but disappointing
offspring. Consent secured, the boys acted entirely upon their own
responsibility, and, to make their subsequent plans clearer, it may be
well to explain a little more of the geography of the region. The cave of
Ab was on the north side of the stream, where the rocky banks came close
together with a little beach at either side, and the cave of Oak was
perhaps a mile to the westward, on the same side of the stream and with
very similar surroundings. On the south side of the river, opposite the
high banks between the two caves, the land was a prairie valley reaching
far away. On the north side as well there was at one place a little
valley, but it reached back only a few hundred yards from the river and
was surrounded by the forest-crowned hills. The close standing oaks and
beeches afforded, in emergency, a highway among their ranches, and along
this pathway the boys were comparatively safe. Either could climb a tree
at any time, and of the animals that were dangerous in the treetops there
were but few; in fact, there was only one of note, a tawny, cat-like