"What's the matter?" asked his wife. "Do you see that red-haired boy after our fruit?"
"Well," said the farmer slowly, "it's a little too dark to see if he has red hair or not, but there's somebody down in my orchard. I'll go and take a look."
"Better be careful," warned his wife.
"I'm not afraid," was the answer, and he stepped quietly from the porch and walked off in the darkness.
"Maybe we'd better go with him," suggested Captain Ben. But just as he and Daddy Bunker were starting to follow the farmer, Mr. Brown came back.
"I reckon it was only some tramps sneaking around," he said. "But I'll turn old dog Major loose, and he'll drive 'em off if they try to rob my hen roost."
Russ, Rose and the others were so sleepy that they were sent to bed early by their father. Russ and Rose wondered if they would be disturbed as they had been the previous night by the little River children.
"You don't walk in your sleep, do you?" asked Russ of Tad, who was to have a little room to himself.
"No, I never did that I know of," he answered.
The night passed quietly, as far as the Bunker children knew, and they all slept soundly. Rose did wake up once during the night to get Vi a drink, and it was then that Rose heard the distant barking of a dog. But as this often happened, even at home, she did not wonder at it, and she soon went to sleep again.