Where the oxen had gone or what had become of them was a mystery; the party searched the forest in vain for a distance of five or six miles on all sides.
Some of the men thought that the oxen had fallen into the stream and had drowned; it was not likely that they had been stolen.

Jotham was at last obliged to buy another yoke of cattle in order to do his spring work on the farm.
Two years passed, and Jotham's oxen were almost forgotten.

During the second winter, after school had closed in the old Squire's district, Willis Murch, a young friend of mine who lived near us, went on a trapping trip to the headwaters of Lurvey's Stream, where the oxen had disappeared and where he had a camp.

One Saturday he came home for supplies and invited me to go back with him and spend Sunday.

The distance was perhaps fourteen miles; and we had to travel on snowshoes, for at the time--it was February--the snow was nearly four feet deep in the woods.