JIMMIE lounged about the dining-room and watched his mother with large,

serious eyes. Suddenly he said, "Ma -- now -- can I borrow pa's gun?"

   She was overcome with the feminine horror which is able to mistake

preliminary words for the full accomplishment of the dread thing. "Why,

Jimmie!" she cried. "Of al-l wonders! Your father's gun! No indeed you

can't!"

   He was fairly well crushed, but he managed to mutter, sullenly, "Well,

Willie Dalzel, he's got a gun." In reality his heart had previously been

beating with such tumult -- he had himself been so impressed with the daring

and sin of his request -- that he was glad that all was over now, and his

mother could do very little further harm to his sensibilities. He had been

influenced into the venture by the larger boys.

   "Huh!" the Dalzel urchin had said; "your father's got a gun, hasn't he?

Well, why don't you bring that?"

   Puffing himself, Jimmie had replied, "Well, I can, if I want to." It was

a black lie, but really the Dalzel boy was too outrageous with his eternal

bill-posting about the gun which a beaming uncle had intrusted to him. Its

possession made him superior in manfulness to most boys in the neighborhood

-- or at least they enviously conceded him such position -- but he was so

overbearing, and stuffed the fact of his treasure so relentlessly down their

throats, that on this occasion the miserable Jimmie had lied as naturally as

most animals swim.

   Willie Dalzel had not been checkmated, for he had instantly retorted,

"Why don't you get it, then?"

   "Well, I can, if I want to."

   "Well, get it, then?"

   "Well, I can, if I want to."

   Thereupon Jimmie had paced away with great airs of surety as far as the

door of his home, where his manner changed to one of tremulous misgiving as

it came upon him to address his mother in the dining-room. There had

happened that which had happened. When Jimmie returned to his two

distinguished companions he was blown out with a singular pomposity. He

spoke these noble words: "Oh, well, I guess I don't want to take the gun out

to-day."

   They had been watching him with gleaming ferret eyes, and they detected

his falsity at once. They challenged him with shouted gibes, but it was not

in the rules for the conduct of boys that one should admit anything

whatsoever, and so Jimmie, backed into an ethical corner, lied as stupidly,

as desperately, as hopelessly as ever lone savage fights when surrounded at

last in his jungle.

   Such accusations were never known to come to any point, for the reason

that the number and kind of denials always equalled or exceeded the number

of accusations, and no boy was ever brought really to book for these

misdeeds.

   In the end they went off together, Willie Dalzel with his gun being a

trifle in advance and discoursing upon his various works. They passed along

a maple-lined avenue, a highway common to boys bound for that free land of

hills and woods in which they lived in some part their romance of the

moment, whether it was of Indians, miners, smugglers, soldiers, or outlaws.

The paths were their paths, and much was known to them of the secrets of the

dark green hemlock thickets, the wastes of sweet-fern and huckleberry, the

cliffs of gaunt bluestone with the sumach burning red at their feet. Each

boy had, I am sure, a conviction that some day the wilderness was to give

forth to him a marvellous secret. They felt that the hills and the forest

knew much, and they heard a voice of it in the silence. It was vague,

thrilling, fearful, and altogether fabulous. The grown folk seemed to regard

these wastes merely as so much distance between one place and another place,

or as a rabbit-cover, or as a district to be judged according to the value

of the timber; but to the boys it spoke some great inspiring word, which

they knew even as those who pace the shore know the enigmatic speech of the

surf. In the mean time they lived there, in season, lives of ringing

adventure -- by dint of imagination.

   The boys left the avenue, skirted hastily through some private grounds,

climbed a fence, and entered the thickets. It happened that at school the

previous day Willie Dalzel had been forced to read and acquire in some part

a solemn description of a lynx. The meagre information thrust upon him had

caused him grimaces of suffering, but now he said, suddenly, "I'm goin' to

shoot a lynx."

   The other boys admired this statement, but they were silent for a time.

Finally Jimmie said, meekly, "What's a lynx?" He had endured his ignorance

as long as he was able.

   The Dalzel boy mocked him. "Why, don't you know what a lynx is? A lynx?

Why, a lynx is a animal somethin' like a cat, an' it's got great big green

eyes, and it sits on the limb of a tree an' jus' glares at you. It's a

pretty bad animal, I tell you. Why, when I -- "

   "Huh!" said the third boy. "Where'd you ever see a lynx?"

    "Oh, I've seen 'em -- plenty of 'em. I bet you'd be scared if you seen

one once."

   Jimmie and the other boy each demanded, "How do you know I would?"

   They penetrated deeper into the wood. They climbed a rocky zigzag path

which led them at times where with their hands they could almost touch the

tops of giant pines. The gray cliffs sprang sheer toward the sky. Willie

Dalzel babbled about his impossible lynx, and they stalked the mountain-side

like chamois-hunters, although no noise of bird or beast broke the stillness

of the hills. Below them Whilomville was spread out somewhat like the cheap

green and black lithograph of the time -- "A Bird's-eye View of Whilomville,

N. Y."

   In the end the boys reached the top of the mountain and scouted off among

wild and desolate ridges. They were burning with the desire to slay large

animals. They thought continually of elephants, lions, tigers, crocodiles.

They discoursed upon their immaculate conduct in case such monsters

confronted them, and they all lied carefully about their courage.

   The breeze was heavy with the smell of sweet-fern. The pines and hemlocks

sighed as they waved their branches. In the hollows the leaves of the

laurels were lacquered where the sunlight found them. No matter the weather,

it would be impossible to long continue an expedition of this kind without a

fire, and presently they built one, snapping down for fuel the brittle

under-branches of the pines. About this fire they were willed to conduct a

sort of play, the Dalzel boy taking the part of a bandit chief, and the

other boys being his trusty lieutenants. They stalked to and fro,

long-strided, stern yet devil-may-care, three terrible little figures.

   Jimmie had an uncle who made game of him whenever he caught him in this

kind of play, and often this uncle quoted derisively the following classic:

"Once aboard the lugger, Bill, and the girl is mine. Now to burn the chateau

and destroy all evidence of our crime. But, hark'e, Bill, no violence."

Wheeling abruptly, he addressed these dramatic words to his comrades. They

were impressed; they decided at once to be smugglers, and in the most ribald

fashion they talked about carrying off young women.

    At last they continued their march through the woods. The smuggling

motif was now grafted fantastically upon the original lynx idea, which

Willie Dalzel refused to abandon at any price.

   Once they came upon an innocent bird who happened to be looking another

way at the time. After a great deal of manoeuvring and big words, Willie

Dalzel reared his fowling-piece and blew this poor thing into a mere rag of

wet feathers, of which he was proud.

   Afterward the other big boy had a turn at another bird. Then it was

plainly Jimmie's chance. The two others had, of course, some thought of

cheating him out of this chance, but of a truth he was timid to explode such

a thunderous weapon, and as soon as they detected this fear they simply

overbore him, and made it clearly understood that if he refused to shoot he

would lose his caste, his scalp lock, his girdle, his honor.

   They had reached the old death-colored snake fence which marked the

limits of the upper pasture of the Fleming farm. Under some hickory-trees

the path ran parallel to the fence. Behold! a small priestly chipmonk came

to a rail, and folding his hands on his abdomen, addressed them in his own

tongue. It was Jimmie's shot. Adjured by the others, he took the gun. His

face was stiff with apprehension. The Dalzel boy was giving forth fine

words. "Go ahead. Aw, don't be afraid. It's nothin' to do. Why, I've done it

a million times. Don't shut both your eyes, now. Jus' keep one open and shut

the other one. He'll get away if you don't watch out. Now you're all right.

Why don't you let 'er go? Go ahead."

   Jimmie, with his legs braced apart, was in the centre of the path. His

back was greatly bent, owing to the mechanics of supporting the heavy gun.

His companions were screeching in the rear. There was a wait.

   Then he pulled trigger. To him there was a frightful roar, his cheek and

his shoulder took a stunning blow, his face felt a hot flush of fire, and

opening his two eyes, he found that he was still alive. He was not too dazed

to instantly adopt a becoming egotism. It had been the first shot of his

life.

   But directly after the well-mannered celebration of this victory a

certain cow, which had been grazing in the line of fire, was seen to break

wildly across the pasture, bellowing and bucking. The three smugglers and

lynx-hunters looked at each other out of blanched faces. Jimmie had hit the

cow. The first evidence of his comprehension of this fact was in the

celerity with which he returned the discharged gun to Willie Dalzel.

   They turned to flee. The land was black, as if it had been overshadowed

suddenly with thick storm-clouds, and even as they fled in their horror a

gigantic Swedish farm-hand came from the heavens and fell upon them,

shrieking in eerie triumph. In a twinkle they were clouted prostrate. The

Swede was elate and ferocious in a foreign and fulsome way. He continued to

beat them and yell.

   From the ground they raised their dismal appeal. "Oh, please, mister, we

didn't do it! He did it! I didn't do it! We didn't do it! We didn't mean to

do it! Oh, please, mister!"

   In these moments of childish terror little lads go half-blind, and it is

possible that few moments of their after-life made them suffer as they did

when the Swede flung them over the fence and marched them toward the

farm-house. They begged like cowards on the scaffold, and each one was for

himself. "Oh, please let me go, mister! I didn't do it, mister! He did it! Oh, p-l-ease let me go, mister!"

   The boyish view belongs to boys alone, and if this tall and knotted

laborer was needlessly without charity, none of the three lads questioned

it. Usually when they were punished they decided that they deserved it, and

the more they were punished the more they were convinced that they were

criminals of a most subterranean type. As to the hitting of the cow being a

pure accident, and therefore not of necessity a criminal matter, such

reading never entered their heads. When things happened and they were

caught, they commonly paid dire consequences, and they were accustomed to

measure the probabilities of woe utterly by the damage done, and not in any

way by the culpability. The shooting of the cow was plainly heinous, and

undoubtedly their dungeons would be knee-deep in water.

   "He did it, mister!" This was a general outcry. Jimmie used it as often

as did the others. As for them, it is certain that they had no direct

thought of betraying their comrade for their own salvation. They thought

themselves guilty because they were caught; when boys were not caught they

might possibly be innocent. But captured boys were guilty. When they cried

out that Jimmie was the culprit, it was principally a simple expression of

terror.

   Old Henry Fleming, the owner of the farm, strode across the pasture

toward them. He had in his hand a most cruel whip. This whip he flourished.

At his approach the boys suffered the agonies of the fire regions. And yet

anybody with half an eye could see that the whip in his hand was a mere

accident, and that he was a kind old man -- when he cared.

   When he had come near he spoke crisply. "What you boys ben doin' to my cow?" The tone had deep threat in it. They all answered by saying that none of them had shot the cow. Their denials were tearful and clamorous, and they crawled knee by knee. The

vision of it was like three martyrs being dragged toward the stake. Old

Fleming stood there, grim, tight-lipped. After a time he said, "Which boy

done it?"

   There was some confusion, and then Jimmie spake. "I done it, mister."

   Fleming looked at him. Then he asked, "Well, what did you shoot 'er fer?"

   Jimmie thought, hesitated, decided, faltered, and then formulated this:

"I thought she was a lynx."

   Old Fleming and his Swede at once lay down in the grass and laughed

themselves helpless.