“That horse! It’s running away!” cried Agnes. “Oh, Neale!”
“Shucks!” said that youth, scornfully. “‘The dear little birdies!’ Ho, ho! I thought you liked ’em, Aggie?”
“Liked what?” she demanded, as the noise faded away into the wood.
“The birdies. That was a flock of partridges. They can make some noise, can’t they? Food in the swamps must be getting mighty scarce, or they would not be away up here.”
“Who ever would have thought it?” murmured Cecile. “Partridges!”
“Wish I had a gun,” said Luke.
“Don’t be afraid. They won’t bite,” chuckled Neale O’Neil. “And we won’t be likely to meet anything much more dangerous than birds in the day time.”
“Yet we saw that big cat yesterday,” Ruth said.
“It ran all right. We might have brought Tom Jonah; only he was playing with the kids,” said Neale. “Anyway, the best he would do would be to scare up creatures in the thickets that we otherwise would not know were there.”
“Now, stop that, Neale O’Neil!” cried Agnes. “Are you trying to frighten us?”