She fired, and the squirrel dropped from the limb. Another whine from Joe proclaimed it a clean kill.
Big McTavish, without so much as a word, took the gun inside. Boy held the animals up by their bushy tails and the girl who was watching him said:
“You ain’t carin’ much to see the blacks killed ever since the time you had Tommy for a pet, are you, Boy?”
“Well, I don’t know as I’m carin’ much either one way or t’other,” he answered slowly. “Tommy was a cute little beggar, but he wasn’t really a black. He was a gray squirrel. Grays are gentler and make better pets than blacks. Tom Peeler one time had a black for a pet, and used him mighty good for two years. But one day that black pretended he wanted Tom to play with him and tickle him as he was used to doing, and it gave him a bad bite. No, the blacks are too cross for pets.”
“Boy,” said the girl suddenly, “I meant to tell you before—old Injun Noah was tellin’ me yesterday that there’s a big gray fox who makes his home on the Point. Noah says he’s the biggest silver-gray he ever saw. Says he’s as big as a timber-wolf. But he is so cunnin’ nobody can get a shot at him.”
“Well,” smiled the boy, “I guess we needn’t go after that feller, and you needn’t worry about one little silver-gray. Just you wait a while and you’ll know what I mean.”
He winked mysteriously, and Gloss laughed. Then her face grew grave.
“That man Watson was over here this mornin’, Boy,” she said. “You know what he wanted and you know how he’d get it. Well, I guess him and uncle had words. I was hidin’ in a bunch of willows at the spring when he was goin’ back, and when he passed me he was swearin’ awful.”
“Was he ridin’ toward the trail or goin’ toward Totherside?” asked Boy, his face darkening.
“I watched him cross th’ creek, and when he got across he rode toward the schoolhouse.”