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TIM AND TIP; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A BOY AND A DOG. BY JAMES OTIS, AUTHOR OF "TOBY TYLER," ETC. Chapter I . TIM'S FLIGHT.

"'STRAYED.—A boy from the home of the subscriber; and any one returning him will be suitably rewarded. Said boy is about eleven years old, has short light hair, a turned-up nose, and face very much tanned. When last seen he had on a suit of blue clothes considerably faded and worn, and had with him a yellow dog with a long body, short legs, and a short tail. The boy answers to the name of Tim, and the dog to that of Tip. Any information regarding the runaway will be liberally paid for. Address Captain Rufus Babbige, in care of this office.'

"There, Tim," said the man who had been reading the advertisement aloud, from the columns of a country newspaper, to a very small boy with large dark eyes and a very pale thin face, who was listening intently, "you see that Rufe Babbige don't intend to let you get away as easy as you thought, for he's willing to pay something for any news of you, though I'll be bound he won't part with very much money."

"But he always said he wished I'd have sense enough to die," replied the boy, trying to choke down the sob of terror which would rise in his throat at the idea of being thus advertised for as though he were a thief; "an' it don't seem to me that there's been a day but what he or Aunt Betsey have given me a whippin' since my mother died. Look here."

As he spoke, the boy pushed the ragged coat sleeves up from his thin arms, showing long discolorations which had evidently been made by a whip-lash.

"It's all over me just like that, an' I don't see what he wants Tip an' me back for, 'cause he's always said he wished he was rid of us."

"It's a shame to treat a boy that always behaved himself as well as you did like that," said the proprietor of the country store into which the runaway had entered to purchase a couple of crackers, "an' I don't see what the folks up in Selman were thinking of to let him abuse you so. I don't approve of boys running away, but in your case I think the only fault is that you didn't run sooner."

"But now that he's put it in the paper, he'll be sure to catch me, for I'm only six miles from Selman;" and the big tears began to roll down the boy's cheeks, marking their course by the clean lines they left.

"Folks that know him wouldn't any more think of sending you back to him than they would of cutting your hand off," said the man, as he shook his fist savagely in the direction Captain Babbige was supposed to be.

"But what does he want us for, when he's always wanted to get rid of us?" persisted the boy, stooping down to caress a very queer-looking dog, whose body seemed to have been stretched out, and whose legs looked as if they had been worn down by much running.

"I reckon I can tell you why he wants you, Tim, and when you get older it'll do you some good to know it. He's your uncle, an' your legal guardian, an' I've been told by them that knows that he's got quite a sum of money belonging to you, which would all be his if you should die. Some day, when you are of age, you come back here and claim it; but don't you let him get hold of you again now."

"Indeed I won't," replied the boy, trembling at the thought of the fate which would be his if he should be so unlucky as to fall into the Captain's clutches again.

"Run away from here so far that he can't find you, and when you get a place where you can go to work, be as good a boy as I've always known you to be, and you'll come out of this trouble by being a good, honest man. Here are a couple of dollars for you, and I only wish it was in my power to take you home with me and keep you. But Rufe Babbige would soon break that up, and the best thing you can do is to trudge off as fast as possible."

The boy tried to thank the kind-hearted shop-keeper, but the tears were coming so fast, and the big sob in his throat had got so far up toward his mouth, that he could not utter a word.

Just then a customer entered the store, and he hurried away at once, closely followed by the odd-looking dog, which displayed, in his way, quite as much affection for the boy as the boy did for him.

Down through the one street of the little village, out on to the country road, the two walked as if they were already foot-sore and weary; and when at last they came to where the road wound along through the woods, Tim sat down on a rock to rest, while Tip huddled up close beside him.

"It's kinder too bad to be called such names in the papers, ain't it, Tip?" said the boy, speaking for the first time since they had left the store, "an' I think he ought to be 'shamed of hisself to talk so about you. It ain't your fault if your legs is short, an' your tail gone; you're worth more'n all the dogs in this world, an' you're all that I've got to love me, an' we'll never go back to let Captain Babbige beat us any more, will we, Tip?"

Just then the dog, which had been chewing some blades of grass, got one in his nose—a mishap which caused him to sneeze, and shake his head vigorously, while Tim, who firmly believed that Tip understood all that was said to him, looked upon this as a token that the dog agreed with him, and he continued, earnestly:

"I know just as well as you do, Tip, that it wasn't right for us to run away, but how could we help it? They kept tellin' us we was in the way, an' they wished we'd die, an' everybody that was kind to us told us we'd better do just what we have done. Now we're off in the big, wide world all by ourselves, Tip, an' whether the Cap'en catches us or not, you'll love me just as much as you always have, won't you? for you're all I've got that cares for me."

The dog was still busy trying to settle the question about the grass in his nose, and after that was decided in his favor, he looked up at his young master, and barked several times, as if expressing his opinion about something, which the boy interpreted as advice.

"Well, I s'pose you're right, Tip, we ought to go along; for if we don't, we sha'n't even find a barn to sleep in, as we did last night."

As he spoke, Tim arose wearily from his hard seat, his legs stiff from long walking, and trudged along, while Tip followed as closely at his heels as it was possible for him to get.

It was nearly sunset, and as he walked on it seemed as if he was getting farther into the woods, instead of coming out at some place where he could find shelter for the night.

"Looks kinder lonesome, don't it, Tip?" and Tim choked back a sob as he spoke. "I don't want to sleep out here in the woods if I can help it; but it wouldn't be half so bad as if one of us was alone, would it?"

In this fashion, keeping up a sort of a conversation, if it could be called such, where one did all the talking, and the other wagged his short stump of a tail, the two journeyed on until it was almost too dark to distinguish objects a short distance ahead.

Only once since the store-keeper had given him the two dollars had Tim thought of what he had said regarding Captain Babbige's having money of his, and then he put it out of his mind as an impossibility, for surely he would not have scolded so about what the boy and his dog ate if Tim had any property of his own.

"I guess we shall have to sleep in the woods, Tip," said Tim, disconsolately, as the trees appeared to be less thick together, but yet no signs of a house; "but it won't be much worse than what Aunt Betsey calls a bed good enough for boys like me."

Just at that instant Tim was frightened out of nearly all his senses, and Tip was started on a barking match that threatened to shake his poor apology of a tail from his thin body, by hearing a shrill voice cry out:

"Look here, feller, where are you goin' this time of night?"

[to be continued.]