Night Noises 183 



in the woods froze and popped like guns, but 

 with a harsher, flatter noise. The popping 

 was scattered, coming maybe half a dozen 

 times in a night, and commonly after the 

 turn of it. Joe wondered no little as to how 

 it was made. It could not be that the timbers 

 burst from freezing, as a pitcher or a glass 

 would do if left full of water. The house 

 had been standing fifty years, yet the sills 

 and plates were as sound as at first. Still, once 

 or twice in the woods he saw curious gaping 

 seams up and down a trunk. Old man Shack 

 explained that " such trunks were fool trees 

 that had hilt their sap too long and had it 

 freeze in ^em an' bust " — but Joe was not 

 sure the old man ever told the truth except 

 by accident. 



In February it was the sheep-bells. Feb- 

 ruary was lambing time. The ewes ran on 

 the early wheat, and one in three was belled. 

 This was to save them from the dogs. Many 

 bells frighten ofF a sheep-killing dog which is 

 not hungry but kills for the fun of killing. That 

 is the besetting sin of bird-dogs, which, how- 

 ever, are shrewd-witted enough to leave their 

 home flocks untouched and go miles away for 

 sheep-slaughter. In another fashion the bells 

 were protective. When any commotion in 

 the flock set up such a ringing, Joe or his 

 father at once went out to see what it meant. 



