“Oh! you’re not going to take your gun into the woods?”
“Sure—I am! I might get a chance at a fox!”
“Won’t it be an awful nuisance carrying it all the way through the thick undergrowth—we want to go as far into the woods as the Bear’s Den?” suggested Marcoo tactfully.
“Well, perhaps it would. I’ll just scoot home then, and be back in no time!”
He snatched the dead birds from the fence, raced away and reappeared in three minutes, with the terrier barking at his heels.
“I’m going to let Blink come anyhow; he’ll have a great time chasing things—eh, Blinkie?” Leon made a hurdle of his outstretched arm for the scampering dog to jump over it.
And the terrier replied in a volley of excited barks, saying in doggy talk: “Fellows! if there’s fun ahead, I’m in with you. The woods are a grand old playground!”
He led the way, and the four boys followed, jostling each other merrily, rubbing their high spirits together and bringing sparks from the contact—bound for that mysterious forest Paintpot.
But the stranger, Nixon Warren, could not forbear throwing one backward glance from under his wide-brimmed hat at the poor dog-scorned yellow-legs, its joy-whistle silenced, stiffening in the dust.