“Oh, Guy! I say. Guy Harris, hold on a minute.”
The two boys, between whom the conversation above recorded took place, stopped when they heard these words, and looking across the street saw Tom Proctor running toward them. One arm was buried to the elbow in his pocket, and under the other he carried a beautiful snow-white dove, which was fluttering its wings and trying to escape from his grasp.
“See here, Guy!” exclaimed Tom as he came up, “I have just been over to your house, where I found my pigeon, which I lost about a week ago. Your mother said it came to your barn, and that you shut it up to keep it for me. Now that was a neighborly act, and I want to repay it. Here’s that box you have so often tried to buy from me.”
As Tom said this he pulled his hand out of his pocket and gave Guy the article in question, which proved to be a brass match-box. It was not a very valuable thing, but it had a revolving top secured by a curiously contrived spring, was stamped all over with figures of wild ducks, deer and rabbits, and was altogether different from anything of the kind that Guy had ever seen before.
For some reason or other he had long shown a desire to obtain possession of this box, but the owner could not be induced to part with it.
Before he could express his thanks for the gift Tom was half-way across the street on his way home.
“This is just the thing I wanted,” said Guy joyfully, as he and George Wolcom resumed their walk. “I shall think of Tom every time I look at this box when I am out on the prairie.”
“When you are out on the prairie?” echoed George. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, it is my secret. You may know it some day, but not now. What do you suppose is the reason why I want a cross-gun?”
“Why, to kill birds with.”