“Hullo! Col,” exclaimed Marcoo. “Say, this is fine! We were just starting off to hunt you up—Nix and I! This is my cousin, Nixon Warren, who popped up here from Philadelphia late last night. Nix, this is my chum, Colin Estey!”
The two boys acknowledged the introduction with gruff shyness.
“Nixon and I settled on going down the river to-day in Captain Andy’s power-boat, and Mother put us up a corking good luncheon,” Marcoo significantly swung a basket pendant from his right hand. “But we’ve just been talking to Captain Andy,” glancing backward over his shoulder at the receding figure of an elderly man who limped as he walked, “and he says he can’t take us to-day. He won’t even loan us the Pill.” Coombsie gesticulated with the basket toward the broad tidal river gleaming in the sunshine, on which rode a trim gasolene launch with a little rowboat, so tubby that it was almost round and aptly named the Pill, lying as tender beside it.
“Pshaw! the Pill isn’t much of a boat. One might as well put to sea in a shoebox!” Colin chuckled.
“I know! Well, we can’t go on the river anyhow, so we’ve determined to take the basket along and spend the whole day in the woods. Nix is—”
“Great O!” whooped Colin, breaking in. “That’s what I’ve been planning on doing too. I want to go far into the woods to-day,”—his hands doubled and opened excitedly, as if grasping at something hitherto out of reach,—”farther than I’ve ever been before,—far enough to see Varney’s Paintpot and the old Bear’s Den—and some of the other wonders that the men tell about!”
“But there aren’t any bears in these Massachusetts woods now?” It was the strange boy, Nixon Warren, who eagerly spoke.
“Not that we know of!” Coombsie answered. “If one should stray over the border from New Hampshire he manages to lie low. Apparently there’s nothing bigger than a deer traveling in our woods to-day—together with foxes in plenty and an occasional coon. The last bear seen in this region, Nix, had his den in the cave of a great rock in the thickest part o’ the woods. He was such an everlasting nuisance, killing calves and lambs, that a hunter tracked him into the cave and killed him with his knife. Ever since it has been called the Bear’s Den. I’ve never seen it; nor you, Col!”
“No, but Starrie Chase has! I was going to hunt him up too, and Kenjo Red: they’re a team if you want to go into the woods; they know more about them than any other boy in Exmouth.”
“Kenjo has gone to Salem to-day. And Leon Chase?” Coombsie’s expression was doubtful. “I guess Leon makes a bluff of knowing the woods better than he does. He’ll scare everything away with his dog and shotgun. Captain Andy is hunting for him now,” with another backward glance to where the massive figure of the old sea-captain was melting from view. “He’s threatening to shake Starrie until his heels change places with his head for fixing the Doctor’s doorbell last night, wedging a pin into it so that it kept on ringing until the electricity gave out—and for teasing old Ma’am Baldwin again.”