A NIGHT ON CHOCORUA.

BY ESEMEE.

"Where's your Tom Matthews, Ned?" said Phil Hartshorn. "Here it is half past nine by my watch, and he was to be on hand at nine sharp."

As he spoke a little freckled boy came panting up to them, saying: "Tom says as how he can't go up 'Corua to-day nohow. He's sick with suthin I've forgot the name of. He's awful sorry, and said if yer'd only hold on till to-morrer, he'd go; and he thinks it'll be a sight better day, too, for he's 'most sure there'll be a thunderin' big shower to-night."

"Nonsense!" said Dick; "there isn't one chance in a million of a shower; sky is as clear as a bell."

"But," says Arthur, "there are no two ways about it. Mother said we were not to go if Tom Matthews were not here."

"You don't suppose mother really meant that?" said his brother Phil.

"Now, Cousin Arthur," said Dick, "you just put that conscience of yours to sleep as fast as you can.

"'Hush-a-by, conscience, on the tree-top, Dear Mrs. Hartshorn would never say stop.'"

"But, Arthur," interrupted Ned, "she wouldn't care if she knew how many times I've been up Chocorua. Why, I've been to the top thousands of times. I know the way just as well as Tom."

Though Arthur's duty was as clear to him as at first, he decided to take Dick's advice, and silence his conscience.

Half an hour later they were climbing up the steep side of the mountain, laden with the tent, provisions, and other necessaries for their night's encampment.

Chocorua is one of the most difficult of the New Hampshire hills to ascend, not so much on account of its height as its rocky and steep outline. To Ned Brown, however, accustomed to scrambling over the hills of his native place, it was simply a very tiresome walk; but to the three city boys, who for the first time were spending part of their vacation among the mountains, it was a novel and rough experience. Nevertheless, their spirits did not flag, and about two o'clock they had reached the rocky summit, as tired and hungry a set of boys as you ever saw.

They soon found a comfortable spot, where they threw themselves down at full length, and at Dick Harris's suggestion pitched into the eatables which Mrs. Brown had put up for them.

After a while Ned exclaimed: "Look here, boys, you can't spend the whole afternoon eating. Just clap two or three doughnuts into your pockets, and come along. We've got to get ready for the night."

"Wait a week," said Dick, "until I take one more drink of coffee; then we'll go and explore the country."

"Can't you remember, Ned, where you generally pitch your tent?" said Arthur.

"Tom Matthews pretty much always bosses that business," answered Ned.

"I guess we can find as good a place as Tom Matthews," said Phil. "There it is now, right ahead—don't you see?—down in that hollow under that tall tree."

"All right; let's make for it, then," said Ned. "We haven't any time to lose."

Some hours later Ned called out: "Now that everything is ready for the night, you shall have a high old supper. You needn't any of you put your fingers in the pie either. I'm goin' to make a regular lumberman's pudding. Dick, just hand me that tin plate, will you?"

"No, sir, I can't even do that; it might be putting the very finger into the pie, or rather pudding, which would spoil the whole. I am not going to run any such risk."

"That's too thin—a capital excuse for laziness—but I can do it myself fortunately. First, you see, I cut a slit in this stick, and slip the edge of the plate into it, and that makes a tip-top spider. Next I put in some pieces of fat pork, and am goin' to fry them over this blazin' fire. When the pork is done, I'll take that out, and crumb this pilot-bread into the fat."

"What a mess!" the boys all exclaimed. "You don't expect us to eat that stuff, do you?"

"You needn't trouble yourselves; I can eat every bit of it. Wait till I sprinkle white sugar all over it thick and heavy, and then it is done. Come, do you want any, or shall I eat it all myself?"

"As Caterer Brown has made it, we won't hurt his feelings by refusing," said Arthur. "Hand it along."

"Well, Ned," said Phil, "this is capital. Do they teach cooking in your school, or has Miss Parloa been in this part of the country?"

"Oh, last winter when I camped out up North with father and the other lumbermen, they used to make this 'most every night, and I tell you it tasted mighty good."

After supper the boys whiled away the time telling stories. The most interesting one was the legend of Chocorua, the Indian chief after whom the mountain was named.

Chocorua had a son, a boy of ten or twelve years, who often visited the house of a white man who lived in Albany, at the foot of the mountain. One day while there he accidentally ate some food which had been prepared for a fox, and soon after died. This brought out the Indian spirit of revenge in Chocorua, so that he watched his opportunity, and when the father was away, killed the wife and children. Cornelius Campbell, the father, though a white man, was not a Christian, and the same revengeful spirit took possession of him. Not long after, Chocorua, while standing on the edge of a precipice, was shot by Campbell. He lived only a few moments, uttering fearful curses against the white men. He was never buried, but his bones were left to whiten on the rocks.

All Ned's talk tended to make the boys ready to start at every sound, and Arthur inwardly began to wish he had not disregarded the warning voice he had heard in the morning. Even the other boys felt a little dismal; but they all forced out loud exclamations over the pleasure of the day, and the moment after they had dropped on their bed of pine boughs were all sound asleep.

The clouds which, unnoticed by the boys, had been forming behind the hills, gathered heavily in a threatening mass over the mountain-peak, the air trembled with peal after peal of rolling thunder, the sky was brilliant with lightning flashes which sent gleams of intense and livid light over the white cliffs. Still the boys slept on. The furious storm-clouds gradually dropped lower and lower, until at last they burst in one torrent of hail and rain. Every hollow was fast filling up, until the one in which our boys were encamped became as it were the bed of a pool, and the white canvas of their tent seemed like the tip of a sail flapping in the wind.

One of those fearful claps of thunder which seem to shake the whole earth, and which are heard only among the mountains, at last roused the boys. In terrible alarm, they waded from their tattered tent, just in time to see the tall tree near whose roots they had been sleeping hewn into fragments by the glistening blade of the axe which the angry storm was wielding. For a moment they gazed on each other with mute horror, then, as with one voice, exclaimed, "Where's Ned?"

They wildly called "Ned! Ned! Ned Brown!" but there was no answer. They groped back for him in the darkness, lighted only by the uncertain flashes, which were growing less and less frequent; but the tent had been swept away, and their fire wholly extinguished, so they had nothing to guide them to the exact spot of their former encampment. For hours they searched in vain. Drenched and chilled, weary and bruised, at length, as day dawned, they found themselves in a dense forest, with no path and no guide.

"What shall we do?" said Arthur. "Why did we come? I will never do what I know to be wrong again."

"'No use to cry for spilled milk,'" said Dick, trying to speak cheerfully, while his face contradicted his words.

"Let us get out of these woods and down this mountain if we possibly can," said Arthur. "Then, if we don't find Ned, we can send some one up for him who knows something about the way."

"All right," said Phil. "It don't look as if we should have anything to eat till we do get down, and I'm 'most starved. Hark! What's that noise? I do believe that's a bear's growl. He is coming nearer, surely."

"Pshaw! nonsense! it isn't a bear; it's only the rustling of the leaves," said Dick.

But every little while some noise would cause them to fear that some wild animal was on their track.

Several times they were stopped by a precipice so steep that no human foot could descend it, and were obliged to retrace their course and seek another less difficult way.

Just at dusk they reached a farm-house, where, as it was on the opposite side of the mountain from their boarding place, they were obliged to spend the night.

Oh, what a night it was! The heavy supper after the long fast made them ill, and every limb was aching with pain and fatigue. Then the terrible anxiety about Ned! What might he not be suffering alone on the mountain, and what report could they give to his mother when they made their way back to the boarding-house? Surely three boys were never more severely punished for disobedience. Never again would Dick sing,

"Hush-a-by, conscience, on the tree-top."

When morning came three miserable-looking objects dragged themselves up to the gate of the old boarding-house. But who was that walking up and down the piazza at such a troubled pace?

Nobody less than Ned, who was fretting himself half crazy waiting for the party who had arranged to go in search of three lost boys. Ned had been more fortunate than they, for after the wash-out, which had separated him from his companions, he had happily strayed into the very path which led home.

Presently Mrs. Hartshorn came out, but after one good look at the party she apparently concluded that they needed no word of reproof from her. Conscience had evidently preached every effective sermon, for which the experience of the past thirty-six hours had supplied a powerful text.