“And how did it ever come in them bushes; that’s what gets me?” queried Step Hen, staring at the bag, which he had taken again, as though half inclined to suspect that the mischievous little jinx, whom Giraffe always said played these mean tricks on him, might possess the power to change his black package into this weatherbeaten little bag.
“Oh! it’s old, you c’n see,” remarked Giraffe, carelessly. “P’raps the hunter that carried it up here got sick of his bargain; and slipping a few rocks inside, to weigh it down, he just gave her a heave out of sight.”
“Think so?” remarked Step Hen. “Well, anyhow, it don’t look a bit like that lost package of mine, does it?”
“Suppose you open it up,” suggested Allan; “it might be you’d find your missing things inside.”
Doubtless he only said this in a spirit of fun, in order to hasten Step Hen; but the other took it seriously.
“Now, however in the wide world would my packet come in here, Allan?” he asked. “None of the boys ever set eyes on this bag before, have you, fellers?”
Giraffe, Davy, and Bumpus thereupon solemnly raised, each one his right hand, and declared that to the best of their knowledge and belief they had never glimpsed that same bag until their comrade carried it out of the bushes.
“Now, open her up, Step Hen, and let’s see the kind of rocks it’s got inside,” Giraffe demanded.
Whereupon Step Hen proceeded to cautiously test the catch of the bag. Finding that it would give readily, he pressed it further, and then drew back the jaws of the leather receptacle.
“Rocks?” he ejaculated, scornfully, just as if he had never taken the least stock in that far-fetched theory himself; “what d’ye call that, fellers?”