“Mercy sakes!”

“ — and load up the cabin with rats and snake’s and so on, for company for Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let them go by, and when the dogs come they warn’t interested in us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by ourselves, and wasn’t it bully.

Aunty!”

“Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was you, you little rapscallions, that’s