SOCKY woke early next morning, and lay looking up at the antlers, guns, and rifles which adorned the wall. On a table near him were some of the treasures of that sylvan household—a little book entitled Melinda, a dingy Testament, a plush-covered photograph-album, and a stuffed bird on a wire bough.

Sinth and the album were inseparable. She sometimes left the dingy Testament or the little book entitled Melinda at her Pitkin home, but not the plush-covered album. That was the one link which connected her, not only with the past, but with a degree of respectability, and even with a vague hope of paradise. What a pantheon of family deities! What a museum of hair and whiskers! What a study of the effect of terror, headache, rheumatism, weariness, Sunday apparel, tight boots, and reckless photography upon the human countenance!

Therein was the face of Sinth, indescribably gnarled by the lens; a daguerreotype of her grandmother adorned with lace and tokens of a more cheerful time in the family history; faces and forms which for Sinth recalled her play-days, and were gone as hopelessly.

Just after supper the night before, Socky had seen his uncle apply grease to a number of boots and guns. The boy had been permitted to put his hands in the thick oil of the bear, and, while its odor irked him a little, it had, as it were, reduced the friction on his bearings. Since then the gear of his imagination had seemed to work easier, and had carried him far towards the goal of manhood.

Immediately after waking he found the bottle of bear's-oil and poured some on his own boots and rubbed it in. He was now delighted with the look of them. It was wonderful stuff, that bear's-oil. It made everything look shiny and cheerful, and gave one a grateful sense of high accomplishment.

Soon he had greased the bird and the bush, and the oil had dripped on the album and the dingy Testament and the little book entitled Melinda. Then he greased the feet and legs of Zeb, who lay asleep in a corner, and who promptly awoke and ran across the floor and leaped through an open window, and hid himself under a boat, as if for proper consideration of ways and means. In a few moments Socky had greased the shoes of his sister, and a ramrod which lay on the window-sill, and taken the latter into bed with him.

Soon he began to miss the good Aunt Marie, for, generally, when he first awoke he had gone and got into bed with her. He held to the ramrod and sustained himself with manly reflections, whispering as they came to mind: "I'm going to be a man. I ain't no cry-baby. I'm going to kill bears and send the money to my father, an' my Uncle Silas will give me a rocking-horse an' a silver dofunny—he said he would."

He ceased to whisper. An imaginary bear had approached the foot of the bed just in time to save him, for the last of his reflections had been interrupted by little sobs. He struck bravely with the ramrod and felled the bear, and got out of bed and skinned him and hung his hide over the back of a chair. He found some potatoes in a sack beside the fireplace, and put down a row for the bear's body and some more for the feet and legs. Then he greased the bear's feet and got into bed again, for Sue had awoke and begun to cry.

"What's the matter?" he inquired.

"I want my Aunt Marie," the girl sobbed.

"Stop, Uncle Silas 'll hear you," said Socky.

"I don't care."

"I'd be 'shamed," the boy answered, his own voice trembling with suppressed emotion.

Since a talk he had had with his father the day before, he felt a large and expanding sense of responsibility for his sister. Just now an-idea occurred to him—why shouldn't he, in his own person, supply the deficiencies of the great man they had come to see?

"I'll be your Uncle Silas," he remarked. "I'm a man now, an' I've killed a bear."

"Where is he?"

"Dead on the floor there."

She covered her face with the blankets.

"I'm going to have a pair o' moccasins an' a rifle, an' I'll carry you on my b-back." He had stammered on the last word after the manner of his uncle.

Just then they heard a singular creaking outside the door, and before either had time to speak it was flung open. They were both sitting up in bed as their Uncle Silas entered.

"I tnum!" said he, cheerfully.

Suddenly he saw the bird and the books and the table-top and the potatoes and the ramrod and the hands of Socky. He whistled ruefully; his smile faded.

"W-well greased!" he said, looking down at the books and the bird.

He found a gun-rag and wiped up the oil as best he could.

"She'll r-raise—" The remark ended in a cough as he wiped the books. Then he covered them with an empty meal-bag.

The children began to dress while Strong went half-way up the ladder and called to Gordon, still asleep in the loft above. Then he sat on the bed and helped the boy and girl get their clothes buttoned..

"My little f-fawns!" he muttered, with a laugh.

He had sat up until one o'clock at work in his little shop by the light of a lantern. He had sawed some disks from a round beech log and bored holes in them. He had also made axles and a reach and tongue, and put them together. Then he had placed a cross-bar and a pivot on the front axle and fastened a starch-box over all. The result was a wagon, which he had arisen early to finish, and with which he had come to wake "the little fawns." Now, when they were dressed, he sat them side by side in the wagon-box and clattered off down the trail.

At first the children sat silent, oppressed as they were by the odor of bear's-oil, not yet entirely removed from their hands and faces. As the wagon proceeded they began to laugh and call the dog. Zeb peered from under the friendly cover of the boat, and gave a yearning bark which seemed to express regret, not wholly unmingled with accusation, that on account of other engagements he would be unable to accept their kind invitation. At the boat-house were soap and towel and glad deliverance from the flavor of the bear. On their return "Mis' Strong" met them at the door of the cook-tent. She raised both hands above her head.

"My album!" she gasped.

"T-y-ty!" the Emperor whispered.

"An' the book my mother gave me!" she exclaimed, her tone rising from despair to anger. "They're ruined—Silas Strong!"

"N-nonsense," said her brother, calmly.

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, tauntingly. "Silas Strong, do you know what has been done to 'em?"

"G-greased," he answered, mildly. "D-do 'em good."

She ran into the cook-tent and returned with the sacred album. There was an odd menace in her figure as she displayed the book. She spread it open.

"Look at my grandfather!" she demanded.

The bear's-oil had added emphasis to a subtle, inherent suggestion of smothered profanity in the image of her ancestor. It had, as it were, given clearness to an expression of great physical discomfort.

"L-limber him up," said the Emperor, quite soberly.

Master and Gordon were now approaching. The former took off his hat and bowed to the indignant Sinth and blandly remarked, "Boneka, madam."

The men had begun to laugh. Sinth changed color. She looked down. A smile began to light her thin face. She turned away, repeated the magic word in a low voice, and added, "I forgive." She walked hurriedly through the cook-tent to her own quarters, and sat down and wept as if, in truth, the oil had entered her soul. It was, in a way, pathetic—her devotion to the tawdry plush and this poor shadow of her ancestor—and the historian has a respect for it more profound, possibly, than his words may indicate. She would have given her album for her friend, and it may be questioned if any man hath greater love than this.

When she entered the dinner-tent and sat down to stir batter for the excellent "flapjacks" of Lost River camp, the children came and kissed her and stood looking up into her face. Socky had begun to comprehend his relation to the trouble. Shame, guilt, and uncertainty were in his countenance. Urgent queries touching the use and taste and constitution of batter and its feeling on the index-finger of one's hand were pressing upon him, but he saw that, in common decency, they must be deferred.

"Aunt Sinthy," said the little Duke of Hillsborough.

"What?" she answered.

"I won't never grease your album again."

The woman laughed, placed the pan on the table, and put her arms around the child. Then she answered, in a tone of good-nature, "If it had been anything else in this world, I wouldn't have minded."

Just then Zeb slowly entered the cook-tent. He had got rid of some of the oil, but had acquired a cough. The hair on every leg was damp and matted. He seemed to doubt his fitness for social enjoyment. In a tentative manner he surveyed the breakfast-party, as if to study his effect upon the human species. The Emperor patted him and felt of his legs.

"What's the matter o' him?" Sinth inquired.

"G-greased!" said the Emperor, with a loud laugh, in which the campers joined, whereat the dog fled from the cook-tent.

"S-slippery mornin'!" Strong exclaimed, while he stood looking through the doorway.

"Hard t' keep yer feet," said Sinth, who had caught the contagion of good feeling which had begun to prevail. It was, indeed, a remark not without some spiritual significance.

So it befell: the spirit of that old chief whose body had long been given to the wooded hills came into Lost River camp.

Gordon hurried away after breakfast. While the children stood looking down the trail and waving their hands and weeping, Silas Strong ran past them two or three times with the noisy little wagon. Its consoling clatter silenced them. There had been a deep purpose in the heart of the Emperor while he spent half the night in his workshop. Gordon had laughingly explained the cause of their disappointment on arriving at Lost River camp. Strong was trying to recover their esteem.

"C-come on!" he shouted.

Soon Socky and Sue sat in the little wagon on their way to Catamount Pond with their Uncle Silas and the young fisherman.

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