122 FRUIT RAXCHIXG. 



buy bread with, or blasting powder, he comes down 

 into the city and sells coal-oil." 



" Coal oil ! You mean petroleum ? " 



"Sure." 



The following narrative relates an incident which 

 befell not very distant neighbours. 



Picture to yourself an autumn night, a pallid 

 moon floating among islands of scurrying cloud, a 

 dim and baffling light on the earth, a deep, dark lake 

 on the one side, lofty mountains capped with snow 

 and half swallowed up in gloom on the other, and a 

 narrow ribbon of road creeping along between the 

 windings of the lake shore and the flank of the moun- 

 tains; the wind moaning fitfully through the gorges 

 and ravines, and whispering in ghostly cadences 

 through the scattered forests which cling to the lower 

 parts of the hills, and throw their shadows across the 

 uneasy road. 



Along that road creaked a rig, a small, light 

 waggon on four wheels. In the waggon sat a man and 

 a woman. The night was made still more eerie by 

 mysterious sounds creeping up from the lake, drop- 

 ping from the mountains, drifting out of the woods, 

 sounds which it would have puzzled a skilled native 

 to explain, still more newcomers such as Albert 

 Stephens and his wife. 



The horse was jogging along at a slow pace. 

 Stephens half turned in his seat, and remained so for 

 perhaps a minute. 



" What is it, Albert? " asked his wife. 



" Nothing. T was just looking to see if the carcass 

 of mutton was all right." 



Mrs. Stephens was not conscious that the carcass 



