Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
The College President and the young Taxidermist.
TWO WAYS OF BECOMING A HUNTER
BY
HARRY CASTLEMON
AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES," "WAR SERIES," ETC., ETC.
PHILADELPHIA PORTER & COATES
Copyright, 1892, BY PORTER & COATES.
CONTENTS.
TWO WAYS OF
BECOMING A HUNTER.
CHAPTER I. PLAYING TRUANT.
"I declare, Frank, it is time we were off. It is almost nine o'clock. I wish to goodness there were no such things as school-houses and school-books in the world."
"I am not going to school to-day."
"You're not?"
"No, sir. I'm going to take French leave."
"Do you mean that you are going to run away?"
"I suppose that is what you country fellows call it."
"Well, now, you had better take a friend's advice, and think twice before you do that. You'll get yourself into trouble, sure. The rule of our school is that you must bring a written excuse every time you are absent."
"That was the rule of our school in Boston, too; but it didn't keep the fellows from staying away whenever they felt like it."
"Where did you get your excuses?"
"We wrote them ourselves, and signed our father's name to them; that's the way we got them."
"You can't fool our teacher that way. He knows our hand-writing too well. He knows yours, too, by this time."
"I can disguise it so that he'll not recognize it, I bet you! Don't let's go, Leon. I am heartily sick of school, and everything connected with it."
"So am I."
"Then suppose we spend the day in the woods."
The conversation above recorded took place, one gloomy autumn morning, between Leon Parker and his city cousin, Frank Fuller.
They were about sixteen years of age, and were bright, honest-looking boys; but one of them, at least, was just the opposite of what he appeared to be.
Leon Parker lived in the little town of Eaton, in one of our Northern States. His father was a practising lawyer, and the boy was given every opportunity to prepare himself for usefulness in after-life. But Leon was too indolent to study, and the consequence was that he always stood at the foot of his class, and saw boys younger than himself carry off the honors he might have won if he had been willing to work for them.
