XV. 



TOUOH YARNS A SHELTEH irf A STORM. AN ASTONISHED BEAK. 

 AN UNINVITED GUEST, AND HIS UNCEREMONIOUS EXPULSION. 



" TUCKER," said I, as lie finished his story, " it's 

 my opinion you sometimes shoot with something be- 

 sides a rifle, what we call, in the city, a long bow." 



" Squire," he replied, " I won't pretend not to take 

 your meanin', nor find fault with you for expressin' 

 it ; but what I tell you I've seen, and done myself, 

 you may set down as a sure and certain thing. I 

 don't deny, that down in the settlements, among 

 fellers that think themselves tall timber, I stretch 

 matters a little, and make things look a good deal 

 bigger than the real facts will warrant. I've told 'em 

 about killin' a buck that weighed four hundred, that 

 had, may be, fifteen or twenty prongs to a horn ; but 

 that was always by way of taking the starch out of 

 fellers that pretended to know the ways of the woods, 



