So it was not until he came out to sit down to supper with us that he noticed a vacant chair at table.
"Where is Halstead ?" he asked.

"Isn't Halstead at home ?" No one answered at first; none of us liked to tell him what had happened.

We had always found our cousin Halstead hard to get on with.
Lately he had been complaining to us that he ought to be paid wages for his labor, when, as a matter of fact, what he did at the farm never half repaid the old Squire for his board, clothes and the trouble he gave.
During the old gentleman's absence that winter Halstead had become worse than ever and had also begun making trouble at the district school.
His special crony at school was Alfred Batchelder, who had an extremely bad influence on him.

Alfred was a genius at instigating mischief, and he and Halstead played an odious prank at the schoolhouse, as a result of which the school committee suspended them for three weeks.
That was unfortunate, for it turned the boys loose to run about in company.

Usually they quarreled by the time they had been together half a day; but this time there seemed to be a special bond between them, and they hatched a secret project to go off trapping up in the great woods.
They intended to stay until spring, when they would reappear with five hundred dollar's worth of fur! Addison and I guessed that something of the sort was in the wind, for we noticed that Halstead was collecting old traps and that he was oiling a gun he called his.