Page 50 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

flight and followed in swift pursuit. The boy’s nimble feet widened the
distance between them, but he was at the start almost exhausted with his

severe work, so that when he reached the woods his only hope lay in
hiding.

Silas, entering the woods, could neither see nor hear his intended victim.
Listening between spasms of rushing and raging, he heard a slight rustling

among the branches of a great hemlock that reared its huge, russet-gray
trunk close beside him. Looking up, he saw a pair of dusty legs dangling

twenty feet above him.

"Come down, you little devil, or I’ll shoot you."

"I won’t," said Nathan, half surprised at his own daring; "you can’t shoot

with an axe."

"I’m glad you made me think on’t. Then come down or I’ll chop you down!"

As an earnest of his threat he drove his axe to the eye into the boll of the
tree.

The boy only climbed the higher, and disappeared among the dark foliage
and thick, quivering rays of branches. Parleying no more, Silas began

chopping so vigorously that the great flakes of chips flew abroad upon the
forest floor in a continuous shower, and soon paved it all about him with

white blotches. When the trunk was cut to the middle, he shouted up
another summons to surrender, but got no answer. Then his quick, strong
strokes began to fall on the other side, steadily biting their way toward the

centre, till the huge, ancient pillar of living wood began to tremble on its
sapped foundation. Standing away from it, he peered up among the whorls

of gray branches and broad shelves of leaves, but they disclosed nothing.

"Hello! Come down! Don’t be a fool! An’ I won’t lick you. The tree’s comin’

an’ it’ll kill you." Still no answer nor sound, save the solemn whisper of the
leaves, came down from the lofty branches. "You’re a plucky one, but down

you come!"