“Don’t shout, sir. We may be heard. But that don’t prove nothing. Rabbits and rats and field mice and all sorts of things may have been and eaten it. Cake and chicken! What waste! I might as well have eaten it myself,” he muttered. Then, once more aloud, “We may as well drink what’s in the bottle, sir.”
“But it’s gone, Samson,” cried Fred, from the end of the tunnel.
“Gone, sir? The rabbits couldn’t have—”
“And your jerkin is gone, too.”
“Hooray! Then the poor old—”
Samson checked his jubilant speech before it was half ended, and continued, in a grumbling tone—
“That’s just like Nat I told you how awk’ard he could be.”
Fred came struggling back out of the verdant tunnel, and rose to his feet. Then, looking round, he said—
“We must try and follow his track, Samson. Which way is he likely to move—”
He, too, stopped short, staring wildly before him; and then he caught Samson’s arm, unable to speak, so sudden was the hope which had flashed in upon his brain.