“What do you call this, Marcoo?” the strange boy would exclaim delightedly, finding novel treasure trove in the rare white blossoms of Labrador tea. “I don’t remember to have seen this flower on any of our hikes through the Pennsylvania woods!”
To which Coombsie would make answer:—
“Don’t ask me, Nix; I know a little about birds, but when it comes to knowing anything of flowers or plants—excepting those that are under our feet every day—I ‘fall down flunk!’ Hullo! though, here are some devil’s pitchforks —or stick-tight—I do know them!”
“So do I!” Nixon stooped over the tall bristly flower-heads, rusty green in color, and gathered a few of the two-pronged seed-vessels that cling so readily to the fur of an animal or the clothing of a boy. “It’s funny to think how they have to depend upon some passing animal to propagate the seeds. Say! but they do stick tight, don’t they?” And he slyly slipped a few of the russet pitchforks inside Leon’s collar—whereupon a whooping scuffle ensued.
“It looks to me as if some lightfooted animal were in the habit of passing here that might carry the seeds along,” said the perpetrator of the prank presently, dropping upon his hands and knees to examine breathlessly the leaves and brambles pressed down into a trail so light that it seemed the mere shadow of a pathway leading off into the woods at right angles from where the boys stood.
“You’re right. It’s a fox-path!” Leon was examining the shadow-tracks too. “A fox trots along here to his hunting-ground where he catches shrews an’ mice or grasshoppers even, when he can’t get hold of a plump quail or partridge. Whew! I wish I’d brought my gun.”
Dead silence for two minutes, while each ear was intently strained to catch the sound of a sly footfall and heard nothing but the noisy shrilling of the cicada, or seventeen-year locust, with the pipe of kindred insects.
“Look! there’s been a partridge at work here,” cried Nixon by and by, when the still game was over and the boys were forging ahead again.
He pointed to a decayed log whose flaky wood, garnished here and there with a tiny buff feather, was mostly pecked away and reduced to brown powder by the busy bird which had wallowed there.
“He’s been trying to get at some insects in the wood. See how he has dusted it all up with his claws an’ feathers!” went on the excited speaker. “Oh—but I tell you what makes you feel happy!” He drew a long breath, turning suddenly, impulsively, to the boys behind him. “It’s when you’re out on a hike an’ a partridge rises right in front of you—and you hear his wings sing!”