
Kee 
FOREST*“AND‘“ STREAM: 
[AuG. 31, 1907. 

“Tm not a bit afraid of that,” replied the 
mulatto. “I watched him off and I watched 
the hired men off, and now I want some grub 
I have lots of money—and he produced a 
roll of bills as he spoke—‘and this evening | 
want you to go down to the store and buy me 
some stuff. Here’s a list of what I want, and 
leave the lot at the foot of the big beech tree, 
close to where the road turns in here. I mean 
Then, 
when things get quiet I'll slide over to the bay 
to lie in this swamp for several days. 
shore, where no one knows me, and ship for 
Now 
hurry up and get me some grub; I’m almost 
Boston or Portland on some schooner. 

starved.” 
“There’s not an earthly thing I can get you 
without it'll bé missed, unless it’s bread and 
molasses and cold potatoes,” replied the girl 
“The butcher comes to-morrow, and we have 
fresh meat. The hired men ate every bite we 
have cooked except what’s on the table now. 
Hold on, though, perhaps I can work it for 
you.” 
She went to the pan of food which stood on 
the pantry shelf waiting for Fool. She carried 
it to the door and called the dog. He came at 
once. “Having been dosed with cayenne pep 
per on more than one occasion he was dubious 
at first, but when one or two choice scraps 
were thrown to him and proved to be all 
right, he begged for more. The girl held the 
pan toward him and steered him through the 
largest mud puddle in the dooryard, then she 
retreated to the house, still luring him on with 
the plate of food. The dog followed her from 
the kitchen into the dining room, but when 
she held the plate over the table he became 
dubious. A little petting and coaxing and he 
mounted on the table, upset a jug of milk and 
jumped down on the floor again, leaving his 
muddy pad marks all over the clean tablecloth 
and floorcloth. Then the girl took the cold 
chicken and gave it to the mulatto. She threw 
the dog a few scraps, wrapped some bread up 
in a newspaper and filled two little cans with 
tea and sugar for the fugitive, 
A couple of hours later the Armstrongs re- 
turned. fool greeted them as if they had been 
absent for a month. Mrs. Armstrong jumped 
out of the carriage and went indoors, while 
Sam unharnessed the horse and ran the buggy 
in. As he left the barn and crossed to the 
house his wife met him on the doorstep. 
“T want you to come in and see the beauti- 
ful bit of work that precious dog of yours has 
done while we were away,’ she remarked. 
Sam entered the dining room and saw the 
muddy footprints on the clean tablecloth, the 
stream of milk which had run down on the 
floor and the broken willow pattern dish which 
had belonged to his creat grandfather. He 
reached down the dogwhip, went to the door and 
whistled for Fool. The setter came to his 
call, frisking and yelping as if he was going 
out on a shooting expedition. Armstrong fas- 
tened the snap at the butt of the dogwhip to 
his collar, led him into the dining room and 
showed him the damage done. Then he con- 
ducted him outside and gave him the most 
terrific beating he had ever administered to 
a dog. Finally Mrs. Armstrong interfered, 
and Fool was chained to his kennel. His 
water pan was empty and he was badly in 
need of a drink. After supper his mistress 
noticed that he had no water and she filled 
Fool tasted it, found there 
was no salt in it and lapped it up at once. 
Then he begged for food; he had not been 
fed that day. 
the pan herself. 
A crust of stale bread was on 
the kitchen table. She tossed it to him and 
he ate it ravenously. She took the dog’s pan 
and removing every scrap of meat from it, 
called her husband and gave the dry bits of 
bread, potato skins and sour milk to the dog. 
He cleaned the pan in two minutes. 
“IT don’t believe Fool tasted that 
or got on that table at all. I believe Sadie 
chicken 
stole that chicken and coaxed the dog up on 
the clean cloth. I noticed him when he came 
to be 
face. 
whipped he had no guilty look on his 
Another thing: the chicken was a large 
one, and if he’d eaten it he wouldn’t have 
eaten dry bread and potato scraps so eagerly.” 
Sam made no comment. He thought his 
wife was too sentimental about animals. 
Next morning Fool was stiff and sore from 
his beating. He bore Sam no grudge and 
iicked his hands as he untied him. He watched 
the poultry all day, and in the evening, Mrs. 
Armstrong told her husband that she intended 
to try for a few trout in the deadwater be- 
hind the swamp. She put on rubber boots, 
an abbreviated skirt and a very old hat, with 
an impervious fly veil. Even the ragged at- 
tire she wore did not disguise the fact that 
she was a very pretty woman. 
“Yes, Fool can go with you, but you must 
keep him in order. I don’t want him to run 
up against a porcupine and get quilled. If 
he does, you must come home at once. I in- 
tend to come down as far as Quaker’s Bog. 
I would like to get a shot at that old hawk. 
rye 
Parmacheene for a tail fly and a brown hackle 
for a dropper.” 
I'll meet you there about sundown. 
It was about a quarter of a mile from the 
house to the deadwater. The path ran through 
a “dry bog” of stunted spruce, hackmatack 
and fir trees. The deadwater itself was some 
five hundred yards long by twenty yards wide. 
In July and August the white waterlilies al- 
most covered it. In the early part of the sea- 
son it was clear of weeds and occasionally it 
afforded good fishing. There was a deep pool 
at Quaker’s Bog; the deadwater curved there 
and widened to sixty yards or so, contracting 
again lower down. 
There was no fishing on the north bank of 
the pool. The water was too shallow. On 
the south side it was eight feet deep and for 
thirty or forty yards the bank was as hard as 
a road; then, in a distance of two or three 
feet the nature of the soil changed and the re- 
mainder of the bank became a quaking bog 
which had in past years engulfed more than 
one cow. Sam had fenced the bog off with a 
four-ply line of barbed wire. He had also 
constructed a causeway of fir logs, 
held together with cleats, which rendered it 
possible for himself or his wife to venture 
narrow 
out on the bog and fish the lower part of the pool. 
The fish were on the rise, and in less than 
half an hour Nettie Armstrong had half a 
dozen half and three-quarter pound trout in 
her creel. This being all she required, she 
ceased fishing and sat on the bank just inside 
the fence waiting for her husband. Then a 
fish, far larger than any she had caught, rose a 
little further down the pool. She commenced 
to work out line and cast over him. 
In the Fool had 
brood of ruffed grouse in the alder swamp; or 
meantime discovered a 
to be more correct, the old hen had discov- 
ered him and was doing her best to inveigle 
him away from the chicks. She was success- 
ful. He followed her for some distance, then 
she went off with a whirr. and he stood look- 
ing after the bird. Suddenly he heard a whis- 
tle. He trotted leisurely through the bushes 
toward the place the sound came from; then 
he heard his mistress’ voice raised as he had 
heard it when the tramp came to the door, and 
then shriek after shriek. He tore through the 
alders and emerged on the edge of the bog to 
see Mrs. Armstrong struggling with the same 
big mulatto he had seen the previous day. 
The barbed wire fence was between him and 
the combatants, but he never felt the rip of 
the barbs as he went through it. The shrieks 
had ceased, the mulatto’s hand was over the 
woman’s mouth and her teeth were locked in 
the space between forefinger and thumb. An- 
other instant and Fool’s two inch tusks closed 
on the .man’s thigh, a quick leap backward 
and the tusks were in one of his arms. Jle 
released the woman and turned on the dog. 
Nettie’s broken rod lay on the ground. She 
seized the butt piece and 
the mulatto’s 
brought it down on 
head with all her remaining 
strength. The slender shaft of lancewood 
broke like a pipestem, but the negro lost his 
balance, tripped over the dog and found him- 
self precipitated into the bog. Fool rushed in 
over the quaking surface, gashed his face with 
a furious snap, and then fastened on his hand. 
Nettie Armstrong did not faint. She felt un- 
utterably sick, but she struggled to her feet 
and ran for home. She was almost there when 
she met her husband. Her dress was in tat- 
ters, her face covered with blood. “The nig- 
ger, the nigger, by the wire fence,” was all 
she could gasp out, and she collapsed. 
Nearly a year later the June sitting of the 
Supreme Court came to an end. His Lordship 
disposed of one or two minor offenders, and 
then proceeded to pass sentence on the mulat- 
to. He had been found guilty on all four 
counts. “I sentence you to penal servitude for 
the rest of your life, for the assault on Mrs. 
Armstrong. On each of the three other 
charges I sentence you to five years penal 
servitude. I impose these additional sentences 
in order that it may be utterly impossible for 
you to earn any remission on your sentence 
and again become a menace to the 
munity.” 
com- 
A murmur of applause ran through the 
courtroom , followed by a quick 
“Silence in the Court” from the crier. A spec- 
tator sitting near one of the windows scrib- 
bled the sentence on an envelope and tossed 
it to a friend outside. A thousand people 
were gathered there to hear the sentence. A 
roar of applause went up as the news was 
passed from man to man. 
That judge and the © sheriff 
drove out to the Armstrong place. “I should 
like to see that wonderful dog of yours, Mrs. 
crowded 
evening the 
Armstrong,” said the judge. “I am a great 
lover of animals, and the story I heard in court 
has induced me to drive out here.” 
Mrs. Armstrong blew a little whistle, and 
a moment later Fool came racing round the 
barn, clearing the rail fence with a couple of 



















































































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