A very pretty village was Ogleport, stuck away off there in that fertile valley among the hills. Mountains these latter grew into within a few miles, with ravines and rocky gorges instead of valleys, and beyond them was the great, mysterious, rugged wilderness, with its tall peaks and its forests full of wild animals.

Excellent people were those of Ogleport, with no small opinion of their village and themselves, and their “Academy” was their especial pride.

There it stood, in the middle of the great, tree-bordered “village green,” while on either hand of it were the “meeting houses” of the half-dozen denominations among which the people of Ogleport and the surrounding country were divided.

A large, steeple-crowned structure of wood, painted white, with the staring windows of its two lofty stories unshaded by any such nonsensical things as blinds, the Academy had evidently been planned by the same architect who had designed the church building, and it was as sober and ugly-looking as any of them.

Back of the row of meeting houses and the Academy were long, shadowy rows of ample sheds, for the accommodation of the teams and wagons of the country people on Sundays, and back of that again was the badly kept and tangled-looking “graveyard.”

Those sheds were great places for the conclaves of the “boys” of Ogleport, but their larks rarely carried them, even in broad daylight, beyond or through or over the shattered picket fence of the graveyard.

Not that they were particularly superstitious, but then, as a general thing, they deemed it just as well to “go around,” and it was, indeed, a queer place to get into alone after sundown.

If, however, the boys had any reverence for the bit of land where the village buried its dead, they had none whatever for the big, white building where they were themselves compelled to bury so much of the valuable time they might otherwise have usefully employed in fishing, hunting, and other matters of equal importance.

The benches of the several rooms, not excepting those of the “chapel” or lecture-room in the rear, or the great hall in the second story, the frames of the doors, the pine wainscoting, the desks, every reachable piece of wood about the whole concern was notched and scarred by the sharp and busy knives of the boys of Ogleport.

More than one busy man, there and elsewhere, if he ever came back again on a visit, could trace his deeply-cut initials, three times painted over, among the innumerable scars of that institution of learning.

Zeb Fuller’s generation had done at least their share of this particular kind of improvement, and the oldest inhabitants of the village freely declared their opinion that there had never been such a lot of unreclaimed young savages since the Indians cleared out.

Perhaps they were right, and then again perhaps they had forgotten something, but the boys did not trouble their minds much about it, either way.

Still, it was a great comfort to the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer to meet with so liberal an amount of human sympathy, especially as it had helped him that summer to carry into effect his design of securing an additional assistant.

There had always been Mrs. Ross with two or three ambitious young ladies to help her in the male department, and a long and variegated line of “young men preparing for college,” who had acted for the time being as “tutors” under Dr. Dryer, but never before had the Academy trustees ventured on the outlay required for a full-grown, thoroughly educated, competent man to do the doctor’s heavy work for him.

Perhaps a certain feeling of jealousy on the doctor’s part; a dread of having any second person so near his own throne of authority, had had something to do with it; but now there had appeared a new element of danger which he found himself compelled to meet.

Some mischievous friend and patron of the Academy, mindful, perhaps, of how much he had done towards whittling down the old building, had made it a present of a very complete set of chemical and other instructive apparatus, and what Dr. Dryer himself would do with such new-fangled trash was a good deal more than he could tell.

And so—and so—there had been no end of solemn talk about it, but the new assistant had been hired, and was to begin his labors with the fall term, soon to begin.

An additional feather in the cap of Dr. Dryer had been the fact that an unusually large number of “boarders” was expected. That is, boys from a distance, who were to find homes among the villagers and drink in daily wisdom at the Academy.

Some were to come from even the great city, where the men all know so much and the boys were all so ignorant and so wicked, but wore such good clothes and paid their bills so promptly.

Zeb and his crowd were by no means unaware of all these things, and one of the curious results of the spring-board business was that it set Zeb to thinking.

“If he sets his face against me and won’t let me come in,” said Zeb, to himself, “I’ll miss all the new experiments. Besides, I really want to study some. There is a good deal in books. I wonder if we couldn’t coax the new man to put us into a course of Scott’s Novels and history? Wonder if he’ll be got up on the same plan as old Sol? Pity him if he is, that’s all. Tell you what, I must manage to get straight with the doctor.”

So saying, Zeb wandered off—for it was the very morning after the miller’s dip in the pond—down to the mill-dam.

When he got there, he found Pat Murphy just finishing up a piece of work into which he had put all his heart for an hour.

“New spring-board, eh?” said Zeb. “Now go and get your saw.”

“And what for should I do that same?” asked Pat.

“To set your drowning trap,” replied Zeb, calmly. “I want to see how you do it. You cut it three-quarters through, don’t you?”

“Now, Zeb, ye spalpeen, get out wid yer nonsense,” growled Pat, with a very uneasy expression on his dusty face. “The boord’s all right. Jist shtrip an’ thry it wanst.”

“No, thank you,” said Zeb. “Did you really mean to murder old Gershom? And now you’re going to try it again. I’d never thought that of you, Pat.”

“Go ’long wid yez!” laughed the Irishman. “Yer at the bottom of all the mischief there is. I hope there’ll be young gintlemin from the city, the now, that’ll tache ye manners. It’s waitin’ for thim, I am.”

“Drown ’em, shall you?” said Zeb. “But what’ll Gershom say to that? I’ll have to be down here in my boat all the while.”

“I owe ye one, Zeb Fuller!” exclaimed Pat, with a sudden and very warm burst of grateful recollection. “Ave yer iver in a schrape and want a frind, just come to owld Pat Murphy, that’s all. It was mesilf didn’t want to shpile the fun of yez. That’s all.”

“If we hadn’t been on hand it would have been spoiled pretty badly,” moralized Zeb. “I’m going for a pull in the boat now, myself. Give my love to Gershom when he comes, and tell him he’s a nice boy.”

A queer duck was Zeb Fuller, but, by the time he had floated vaguely up and down the pond two or three times, he had very fairly matured his plans for operating upon Dr. Dryer and preventing the doors of the Academy from being closed against him.

That day was an unusually busy one for Ogleport, in vacation-time, for every gossip in the village had notes to compare with every other, but Zeb Fuller was among the invisible all day, and he retired to rest at an hour which gave his father renewed hopes of the bright future which lay before his heir.

No pains were taken, however, to ascertain whether Zeb’s pillow was constantly occupied through the night-watches, and all the deacon was absolutely sure of was, that he had some difficulty in stirring him up in the morning.

“How’s this, Zeb?” asked his father, as Zeb came sleepily poking down the stairs. “I’m sure you went to bed early enough.”

“That’s it,” said Zeb. “The longer I sleep the better I seem to know how. If I keep on learning, I may be able to sleep a week, some of these long nights.”

“Get away with the cows, then. You won’t get any breakfast, now, till you come back. Hullo, there’s Dr. Dryer at the gate. What’s up now?”Quite enough, one would think, and it was a very natural instinct which led the doctor to that particular house with his story.

Not a hoof had his red-headed errand-boy found in his lot back of his barn, that morning. Gate wide open. Cows gone, nobody knew whither.

“Something sure to happen in this place every time I oversleep myself,” exclaimed Zeb. “Do you think they’re stolen, Doctor, or did that little scamp of yours leave your gate open and let ’em run away?”

“Run away? Hope that’s all,” said the deacon.

“Have you looked for them?”

“Everywhere,” replied the doctor, who had been narrowly eying Zebedee.

The latter did not flinch a hair’s breadth, however, although he now seemed wide awake enough.

“Father,” said he, suddenly, “I see what the doctor’s after. I’ll just put our cows in the pasture—not half an hour’s work. Then you have the bay saddled, and I’ll ride off after his critters. Get a lot of the boys to help me. We’ll find ’em for you, Doctor. You threatened to drown me, day before yesterday, and I’m glad to have a chance of returning good for evil.”

He was off like a shot, and even his grim-visaged father more than half smiled, as he remarked: “Best you can do, Doctor. I’ll have the bay colt ready for him when he gets back. Not another boy in the whole valley’d be so sure to make a find of it.”

Dr. Dryer looked more solemn than ever, and shook his head ominously, for the thought which had brought him to Deacon Fuller’s had hardly been permitted a fair expression.

Halfway down the path to the barn, Zeb was met by still another interested party, who rose lazily from the ground at his approach, cocked one dilapidated ear at him, and mutely inquired:

“Well, and what’s to be done now?”

“All right, Bob,” said Zeb, “but it’s too soon to wag your tail yet. We must take all day to it. If we should find ’em right off, it’d look bad. We’ll tend our own cows first.”

Bob stopped the tail-wagging, though there could have been very little effort required to wag such a stump as that, and trotted off after his master with a thoroughly canine faith that there was fun to come of some kind.

A large, mastiff-built brindled dog was Bob, for whom all the other village dogs had an unbounded respect, if not esteem. He was one of those dogs that no sane human being ever tries to steal.

Zeb’s usual morning “chores” were finished up in rapid style, even for him, and by that time, too, he had succeeded in getting messages to half a dozen of his most trusted friends.

It looked very much, even to the watching eyes of Dr. Dryer, as if the “hunt” were to be made in earnest, and Effie stood behind him and Mrs. Dryer at the window, thinking what a grand time of it the boys would have, and half wishing she could join them.

“It’s the least he can do,” remarked Mrs. Dryer. “I do hope nothing has happened to that dun heifer. Those cows never ran away of their own accord.”

If they had only been near enough to Deacon Fuller’s front gate a few minutes later, they could have heard as well as seen.

“You see, boys,” said Zeb, “you’re all to hunt for ’em, but I’m going on horseback, and of course I’ll find ’em.”

“We might, some of us.”

“No, you mightn’t,” responded Zeb. “Bill Jones, you and Hy Allen scout out towards the lake. Take your hooks and lines in your pockets and be gone all day. If you catch any fish, you can give ’em away to somebody.”

“Not if we don’t get back till after dark,” said Hy Allen.

“That’s so,” said Zeb. “Now, the rest of you might try the East hill. I’m going on the North road, over into Rodney.”

“We might go for woodchucks,” suggested one of the smaller boys.

“We might,” said another, “but then the old sweet tree in the Parker’s orchard’s about ripe.”

“That’s it,” said Bill Jones, “and I saw him going through the village this very morning. Both his dogs with him.”

“All right,” replied Zeb. “Bob and I and the bay colt don’t mean to come back till we bring Sol Dryer’s cows along with us.”

“Hurrah for Zeb Fuller!” shouted Hy Allen, and, with a yell of general approbation and acquiescence in the plans of their chief, for such he seemed to be, that squad of “the worst boys in Ogleport,” as Dr. Dryer would have called them, separated, each to his own especial usefulness.

In five minutes more, Zeb was in the saddle, and he and Bob were off to seek their fortune.

Just a little after noon of that eventful day it might fairly have been said that the plans of Zeb Fuller had fairly begun to ripen.

Bill Jones and Hy Allen were busily at work under a tree by the lake shore, building a fire to aid them in the preparation of their lunch. The borrowed boat they had pulled up on the beach had a very fine show of fish in it, but not a sign of a cow, and the pair of them seemed just as well contented.

Miles away, on the eastern hillside, another detachment of Zeb’s faithful army were admiring the furry coats of no less than three woodchucks which they and their attendant curs had dug out and captured, while not a boy among them all could have got his hands into his pockets or put his hat on his head until he should have eaten more half-ripe sweet apples than any one boy could have the slightest hope of holding.

Long miles away, again to the northward, the bay colt, without one flake of perspiration upon his glossy sides to indicate that he had been driven around the country very extensively, was pulled up in the middle of an open, unfenced bit of woodland, while his rider sat looking wistfully in all directions.

“Not a hoof or a horn!” exclaimed Zeb. “I’d no notion they’d wander out of this. Gone on North, anyhow. Come, Bob, we’ll come up with ’em before long.”

Not quite so soon as he thought, however, for one mile, two miles, and then a third, vanished under the now quickened pace of the bay colt, and the merry face of his rider was growing longer and longer, before a bark from Bob and a shout from his master greeted the discovery of cattle ahead.

And there they were, surely enough, the dun heifer and the two older cows, but not by any means feeding leisurely at the wayside, as they should have been.

On the contrary, they were being driven steadily along northward, in the charge of three ragged, disreputable-looking, vagabond boys, two of them of about Zeb’s size and one younger, and a big, mangy-looking yellow dog.

“Hullo!” shouted Zeb, as he galloped up and passed them, reining in the bay colt across the road. “What are you doing with them cows?”

“Drivin’ ’em to the paound,” exclaimed one of the larger boys, with a malicious grin. “That’s wot we dew with stray critters over here in Rodney.”

“Over here in Rodney!” exclaimed Zeb. “Why, those cows belong to Ogleport. Stolen last night out of the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer’s own yard. I’ll have you all arrested and sent to jail. Pound! I’ll pound ye. Give ’em up, right off.”

There was a little spasm of uncertainty on the faces of the vagabonds, but the “pound reward” for stray cattle in Rodney was a dollar a head, and they could not bear the thought of surrendering wealth like that to a boy of Zeb’s size from a rival township.

They said as much in a moment more, and that in such a dogged and threatening manner, and with such a profusion of unsavory epithets, that Zeb Fuller’s valor got the better of his discretion.

He was no cavalryman.

All his fighting had hitherto been done on foot.

So he wisely cantered a few rods up the road, sprang from the saddle, hitched the bay, shouted to Bob, and started back for the duty that so plainly lay before him, cudgel in hand.

It was one against three, to be sure, for Bob recognized at once his mission to that yellow dog, but Zeb had special reasons of his own for not flinching.

Perhaps it was even less a sense of duty to the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer than of unexpressed remorse.

If those three vagabonds looked for an easy victory, however, they were sorely mistaken.

The dun heifer had been “hard to drive” all along, and she headed her mates in a vigorous break backward at the first rush of Zeb and his faithful ally.

It was all in vain that the smaller of the three “impounders” rushed so wildly after them, and that lessened the odds against Zeb.

They were hard fighters, though, those two vagabonds of Rodney, and Deacon Fuller’s hopeful heir had all his work cut out for him.

He was no scientific boxer, nor was either of his opponents, but Bob was more of an expert, and by the time Zeb began to really find himself in difficulty so did that unlucky yellow dog.

The worst of it was, however, that Bob deemed it his duty to make a clean finish of his particular job instead of coming to the help of his master.

Alas, for Zeb!

His cudgel was wrenched from his panting grasp, at last, though not till he had used it to excellent effect, and while he grappled with one of his foes the other was free to belabor him to his heart’s content. The result might have been bad for Dr. Dryer’s cows, but, just then, there came a sound of heavy wheels on the road above, and over the nearest “rise” of ground the daily stage-coach that plied up and down the valley came lumbering down to the field of battle.