“The owner—now!” said Paul Bird excitedly.
The entire crowd was quiet for several seconds, until the same call and the same whistled signal came again, this time much closer.
“Here you are, mister! Come down this way!” Frank made a trumpet of his hands and called back to the man.
A moment later a burly man, dressed in a heavy brown suit, a rather lengthy, drooping mustache partially covering an ugly looking mouth, broke through a small bunch of brush and came out at the top of the hillock next to them.
“I think that is your dog over here,” said Frank, speaking directly to the man.
“He—ah, Bill! Come here!” called the man, but no dog answered.
“It can’t come, mister, it’s dead.”
Frank spoke to the man very plainly, and in a tone of voice that was quiet, each word enunciated distinctly.
“Dead!” Whereupon the man rushed down the little dale or glen that separated them, and came up to the hillock where the boys and girls were huddled together. Two other men came over the farther hillock behind him, attracted by the conversation.
The large man gave one look at the dog lying on the ledge, a bloody spot showing very conclusively what had happened, each of the boys carrying rifles as further mute evidence.