showing more animation than he's exhibited this hour back. It ain't that Curley's been using the whip either, for that don't hurt Dobbin any, his hide is so thick. He smells water in the air, fellows, that's what!"
"Was that what you noticed?" demanded Tom Betts, who seemed to have fully recovered from his accident of the morning.
"Not much. It's only what my dad would call corroborative evidence, or proof," remarked William; whose father, although a blacksmith, was considered one of the best read men in Stanhope, and able to argue with Judge Holt on legal matters.
"What did you see, then? Don't bait us so, William. Did you get a squint of the pond through the trees? Funny nobody else saw it then," grumbled Jud.
"Y-y-yes, for g-g-goodness sake t-t-tell us before we d-d-drop dead!" cried Bluff, who always stuttered worse when excited.
"I just happened to be looking up over the tops of that big clump of trees ahead when I saw a bird; and he told me there was water below," remarked William, calmly.
"I didn't hear a single squawk," remarked Andy Flinn, warmly; "and even if I had, d'ye expect me to belave that ye understand the birrd
language. Oh! come off. Be aisy with us, and roll your hoop, William!"
"Oh!" William blazed up, "you doubt my word, but that bird told me just as plain as words could there was water below. He was circling up, so as to get above the trees, and put for his nest. And, fellows, when I tell you it was a fish-hawk, with his dinner in his claws, you can understand what I guessed right then and there."
"Hurrah! for William! He's our keen-eyes! Nothing escapes his eagle vision. He's all to the good!" came the shouts, amid more or less laughter.