336 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



but I didn't say nothin', for thinks I to myself, if the var- 

 mint does come out here, and I do miss him, or only 

 wound him, the dogs will be on him like a shot and then 

 he'll go to tree right on top of the cabin, that's sure. 



" So I tugged at the peg, and every time the chain 

 rattled, the Doctor edged back on the top of the cabin, 

 gettin' np to the ridge, I s'pose, for a sure seat, when all 

 of a sudden he disappeared. Heavens and yearth ! he 

 had come backwards onto the hole the painter had dug 

 in the roof, and had tumbled in. 



" Yer should have heerd that man scream ! The 

 painter wasn't nothin' to it. Painter might have been 

 some louder, but then it wasn't so skeery. It fairly made 

 me shaky to hear him. As he come down to the ground 

 inside, there was such a bustling around in that little 

 building ! pigs and painter and man, all seemed to be 

 stirring about pretty lively, and to all the other noises 

 the old woman set up a screechin' that made me more 

 shaky than anything else. 



" ' Quick !' she hollered, ' pull open the door quick ! 

 Oh,Eliakim! oh dear!' 



" I pulled as hard as I could, but the cussed peg had 

 swelled with the rain, and yer couldn't budge it, and'the 

 chain was the ox-chain, as went all across the door. 



" ' Tear it down, you old pirate !" says the old woman 

 to me, and she took hold of it with both hands, but she 

 might as well have tried to pull down the cabin. And 

 all the time, between the bowlings of the dogs and the 

 squeelings of the pigs I could hear the Doctor a praying 



