"I ain't following you, but you keep going just the place I want to go. It's you following me, on'y keepin' ahead. I told you I was after cherries."
"Well, the cherries are that way and I'm going this way, and I don't want you along."
"You couldn't get me if you wanted me."
"Erh——"
"Erh——"
So Sappy went cherryward and Yan waited awhile, then crawled toward the fruit garden. After twenty or thirty yards more, he saw a gleam of red, then under it a bright yellow eye glaring at him. He had chanced on a hen sitting on her nest. He came nearer, she took alarm and ran away, not clucking, but cackling loudly. There were a dozen eggs of two different styles, all bright and clean, and the hen's comb was bright red. Yan knew hens. This was easy to read: Two stray hens laying in one nest, and neither of them sitting yet.
"So ho! Straws show which way the hens go."
He gathered up the eggs into his hat and crawled back toward the tree where all had to meet.
[287] But before he had gone far he heard a loud barking, then yells for help, and turned in time to see Guy scramble up a tree while Cap, the old Collie, barked savagely at him from below. Now that he was in no danger Sappy had the sense to keep quiet. Yan came back as quickly as possible. The Dog at once recognized and obeyed him, but doubtless was much puzzled to make out why he should be pelted back to the house when he had so nobly done his duty by the orchard.
"Now, you see, maybe next time you'll do what the medicine straw tells you. Only for me you'd been caught and fed to the pigs, sure."