With Donald’s assistance the hundred dollars was found and Blackie ran joyously down the hill.
“Little devil!” smiled Gillis as he gazed after him. “Good-hearted a feller as ever lived,” he added feelingly, “but he can’t take one drink without goin’ crazy.”
The “redshirts” had been up in the woods looking over the logging operations, and they now came swinging down the hill, their bright shirts flashing in the sun. They were loggers, “every inch of them,” as Gillis had said.
CHAPTER XII
Andy’s study of nature proved to be no idle whim, and Gillis had long since ceased teasing him. All his leisure moments were spent in scouring the hills and meadows for specimens, and regularly every Sunday afternoon he ascended the hill to Wainwright’s cabin with his collection for the learned Englishman’s inspection.
On this afternoon, Wainwright, being in one of his solitary moods, had wandered up the mountain, and Andy found Connie busily engaged in spading the earth in search of worms, which she tossed to the swarm of birds that hopped on the ground and filled the air about her.
Scolding the bold camp-robbers that ventured dangerously near the shovel blade, she scattered the soil, then laughed joyously as the birds with a great flutter of wings pounced on the fat worms.
Andy threw himself luxuriously on the green sward. This beautiful spot was a diversion from the hot kitchen, a veritable haven of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the flowers, the soft, subdued twittering of the birds, the rustle of the leaves, and the laughing of the water, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound that lulled him into drowsiness.
Connie sat down near him, the birds all about her.
“ ’Ow do you get them so tame, Connie?”