XXVIII 



Thb Stobt of OiiD Pete Meigs. — The Massacre, and ihe Retri- 

 bution THAT FOLLOWED. 



" I SAID the otlier day," said Tucker, "I'd tell you 

 afore we got home, the story of old Pete Meigs' early 

 life, and I'll do it now. It wasn't a thing he liked to 

 talk about, and he never spoke of it to me but once. 

 I said the other day, he was a strange and solitary 

 man, and a gloomy one sometimes. He had places in 

 the woods he always seemed to like better than sny* 

 where else, and the St. Kegis Lake was one of 'em. 

 He would stay round there for days and weeks, and 

 he seemed to look on it as his home in the summer 

 months. It was one day, while we were paddlin' 

 along the shore, round the base of the steep hill, that 

 he told me the story of his young days, and the things 

 that huQg like a dark shadow and a desolation over 



