Maurice shook his head. "It's maybe a cow!" he guessed hopefully.
"Nope, it's a dog. Now then, you see these two boys runnin' away from the gap?"
"Gosh, is that what they be, Bill? Yep, I see 'em."
"Well, that's me an' you. Now then, what you s'pose I meant by them symbols? I meant this. I've gotta watch gap. Fetch your dog over an' we'll set him to watch it, an' we'll skin out an' go fishin'."
Maurice whistled. "Well I'll be jiggered!" he exclaimed. "I wish't I'd knowed that. Say, tell you what I'll do. I'll sneak up through the woods an' whistle Joe over here now."
"No, never mind. I bribed Anse to watch that gap fer me."
"What did you have t' give him?"
"Nuthin'. Promised I wouldn't tell him no ghost stories fer a week if he'd help me out."
They had topped a wooded hill and were descending into a wide green valley, studded with clumps of red willows and sloping towards a winding stretch of pale green rushes through which the white face of the creek flashed as though in a smile of welcome. Red winged blackbirds clarioned shrilly from rush and cat-tail. A brown bittern rose solemnly and made across the marsh in ungainly flight. A blue crane, frogging in the shallows, paused in its task with long neck stretched, then got slowly to wing, long pipe-stem legs thrust straight out behind. A pair of nesting black ducks arose with soft quacks and drifted up and out, bayward.
Billy, who stood still to watch them, was recalled suddenly to earth by his companion's voice.