Phil locked the front door and put the key in his pocket, and then the two boys, with their guns on their shoulders, walked over the lawn and the pasture-field to the river.
It was not, perhaps, altogether wise for Phil to leave the house that night, with nobody in it but a woman and a girl, but the man, Joel, lived with his mother in a small cottage just back of the garden, and Phil himself did not intend to go out of sight of the house.
The two boys had not walked very far before Chap stopped and exclaimed,—
“Why, Phil, what are you doing with that little pop-gun?”
“Oh, this will do well enough to shoot all the muskrats we shall see,” said Phil.
“But, why didn’t you bring Old Bruden?” persisted Chap.
“Never you mind why I didn’t!” answered Phil, a little impatiently.
He was generally a good-humored fellow, but his mind had been greatly ruffled that day.
“My Lord High Steward,” said Chap, after they had walked a little way in silence, “I see what this thing is coming to. You are enveloping yourself in a cloud of mystery. That may be all very well for a fellow just starting off on a track which hasn’t been surveyed yet, and which is to go nobody knows where, and no rails laid, but if you don’t want me to thrust aside the cloud with my strong right arm, you’d better let me inside the fog, I tell you, my boy.”
“You’ve got a nice lot of metaphors tangled up there,” said Phil. “If you were to pick them out and hang them up to dry, in assorted sizes, a fellow might find out what you’re trying to say.”