“Hello, young man,” greeted Mr. Russell.
“Hello,” replied Ned. “Are we going to kill anything?”
“Nothing except some cans and chunks of wood, I guess,” responded Mr. Russell.
“Do you want Bob?” queried Ned, hopefully.
“Why, yes; take him along, if you wish to,” answered Mr. Russell, surveying Bob, who was wagging his tail near by. “He’s pretty old to train, now, but we can see if there’s any good in him, maybe.”
Bob, who, at the stroke of the bell for the close of school always hied out upon the front walk to wait for his master, and thus, this afternoon, had caught him ere he entered the Russell gate, had been uneasily sniffing at the gun case, and eyeing Mr. Russell’s preparations. He whined, vaguely and uncertainly. There was something that he didn’t like.
In spite of Mr. Russell’s ordinary garb Ned was as proud as a peacock when they started up the street together, while Bob, with worried air, trotted behind.
The flats for which they were bound lay just west of the town; they were a wide stretch of low, level land, pasture and shallow marsh, given over to cows and frogs.
Ned and Mr. Russell scrambled over a fence, and stopped in a field where there were no cattle or persons within range.
Mr. Russell took the gun from its case, and snapped it together.