Page 56 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

pairs of thick woolen stockings, as large a wardrobe as most backwoods
dwellers could boast of.

"Your mother stuck this out of the loft winder as I come away," said Job

one day, handing him his father’s cherished gun.

"Oh, I am glad to get this, and see, it is longer’n I be yet. But I’m growing,

for I measured when Toombs put this up loft so’t he could hang his gun on
the hooks over the fireplace. See, I can hold it at arm’s length long enough

to see to shoot," and he stretched out the long-barrelled gun with pride.

"Toombs was out a burnin’ log heaps," Job went on. "She says he’s dretful

narvous an’ jumps at every sound. I ruther guess he’s gittin’ his pay as he
goes along, my boy."

In preparation for the fall trapping, which was the ranger’s chief
dependence, the two, accompanied by Gabriel, made long ranges through

the forest, marking their line by blazed trees, to build deadfalls for martens
on the upland and for mink along the brook and larger streams, and larger

traps for martens, otters, fisher, and beaver, and when the leaves began to
fall they daily gathered their furry harvest. Day after day, too, the woods
rang with Gabe’s deep, melodious voice as he drove the deer to water.

Many an adventure on lake or in forest spiced the half wild life, and the
loving trust of the old man so sweetened it that time glided swiftly past.

Many a lesson of woodcraft the boy also learned, as well as the priceless
one of love and charity to all created things, if Indians and Toombs were
excepted. Perhaps, in time, their turn for forbearance would come.

One day late in the fall Nathan ventured to the Fort, as much to visit the

garrison boys, for whose companionship he often longed in his isolation, as
to carry some fine partridges to the commandant’s lady. He had shot them
himself with his father’s gun, in the use of which he was becoming expert.

"Whativer has coom o’ your redheaded stepfather? He didn’t coom here sin

he coom marryin’ your mother," said one of the English boys.