"No, you stay with mother," his father answered.
"There! I told you they wouldn't let you!" exclaimed Rose.
"Well, I don't care. Maybe some tramps will come here, and I can drive 'em away," declared Russ. "I'm going to get a lot of stones to throw at 'em!"
"You won't need to!" laughed his mother. "No tramps will come here, and it may have been only some fishermen you saw. Fishermen sometimes wear ragged clothes."
"These weren't fishermen, 'cause they didn't have any fishes," declared Laddie.
"Maybe they didn't have any luck, or else perhaps they hadn't yet gone fishing," his mother answered. "Anyhow, we'll leave the tramps, if such they were, to daddy and Captain Ben. And it will soon be time for us to get back to the bungalow."
"Is there anything more to eat?" Russ wanted to know.
"Not even some cookie crumbs," said his mother. "I threw them to the birds and squirrels. But when we go on the picnic to the island we'll take more lunch along."
"I hope we do," sighed Russ, "'cause I'm hungry right now."
The children sat around their mother while daddy and Captain Ben walked toward the grove where Laddie had seen the tramps.