I had wanted to stir in him a knowledge of evil and chose the picturesque as being the least unpleasant. But he couldn't believe that old John Silver and the Squire and Benn Gunn hadn't been real people. The tale dwelt in his mind for days, but the final defeat of the mutineers seemed to satisfy him as to the intention of the narrative.

   "If there are evil men in the world like those mutineers, Mr. Canby, it must be a pretty bad place to live in," was the final comment, and I made no effort to undeceive him.

   It is not my intention to dwell too long upon the first stages of my tutorship, which presented few difficulties not easily surmounted, but it is necessary in order to understand Jerry's character that I set down a few facts which show certain phases of his development. Of his physical courage, at thirteen, I need only relate an incident of one of our winter expeditions. We were hunting coons one night with the dogs, a collie and the bull pup, which now rejoiced in the name of Skookums, already mentioned. The dogs treed their game three miles from the Manor house, and when we came up were running around the tree, whimpering and barking in a high state of excitement. The night was dark and the branches of the tree were thick, so we could see nothing, but Jerry clambered up, armed with a stout stick, and disappeared into the gloom overhead.

   "Do you see him?" I called.

   "I see something, but it looks too big for a coon," he returned.

   "What does it look like?"

   "It looks more like a cat, with queer-looking ears."

   "You'd better come down then, Jerry," I said quickly.

   "It looks like a lynx," he called again, quite unperturbed.

   It was quite possible that he was right, for in this part of the Catskill country lynxes were still plentiful.

   "Then come down at once," I shouted. "He may go for you."

   "Oh, I'm not worried about that. I have my hunting knife," he said coolly.

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