Suddenly, and surprisingly, for he was no more aware of being tired than he had been of being hungry, Bud yawned. Gram looked up.
"You'd best get to bed, Allan. Growing boys need their rest as much as they do their food."
"Good idea, Bud," Gramps said. "If you and me are going to get the milking done and hit Skunk Crick when we ought, we'll have to roll out early."
Bud said good night and went up the worn stairs to his room. For a moment he stared out of the window into the night, yearning toward the little black buck and worrying about how it was faring. It seemed impossible for anything so small and helpless to survive. But he was not as desperately worried as he had been, for Gramps had said that the doe would return to take care of it. And Bud knew that in Gramps he had at last found somebody he could trust.
Leaving his bedroom door open to take advantage of a cool breeze blowing through the window, Bud stretched luxuriously on the feather-filled mattress and pulled the blankets up to his chin. Gram's voice came up the stairway.
"Well, Delbert?"
"He came round," he heard Gramps say. "He came round lot sooner'n I figured. Found himself a fawn, he did, cutest little widget you ever laid eyes on and almost black." There was a short silence and Gramps finished, "He thought it was 'nother orphan."
"So?"
"So tomorrow morning Bud and me are going to fish for Old Shark."
"How will he tie that in with being worked like a Mexican slave his first two days with us?"