Benny, two years younger than Grace, went forth on the man hunt, armed with his pop gun and water pistol. It was actually two days after the eventful experience of Grace and Madaline in River Bend Wood, when the latter had made such a desperate attempt to rescue the alleged "Mrs. Johnston's wash," but though many hours had passed, Grace was still haunted with the awful possibilities of her beloved tramp dying there, all tied up with clove hitches and running bowlines, while the birds scattered spring blossoms over his handsome face. True, she had hoped today, on this second expedition, to recover the lost wash, but to get to that big tree, and relieve the gnawing anxiety, was her first determination; dead or alive she must have a look at the tramp! Nothing could be worse than this awful uncertainty!
"That's the grove over there! See the big straight tree! That's my tree!" she exclaimed, dragging along the erstwhile brave Benny, who just now showed an inclination to come to a full stop. "Come on, Benny, hold on to me. I'll peek first, from the other big tree back of the ivy stump. Then we can see without being seen."
Like a pair of chipmunks they hopped from tree to tree, being careful to keep well in the shadow of one before risking a new position behind another.
"Just like shadow tag," Benny made chance to whisper. "Gee, Sis, this is some little scouting."
"Better than your Boy Scouts' games, isn't it, Benny?" Grace apologized, for indeed it was no easy matter to inveigle the big boy into a little girl's sport. Benny felt much bigger, and decidedly more mature than Grace—that is, he felt that way.
"Oh, Ben, see!" exclaimed the sister. "There's something flying-over—maybe over a grave!"
"Swell chance he had to—make—his own grave!" in contemptuous tones from Benny.
"Well—it is a red flag, flying over something!" Grace whispered emphatically.
Benny sprang out from his tree and with one hand on the automatic-loaded water pistol, and the other on the lead-loaded pop gun, he confronted the hypothetical grave!
"Come on out, Sis," he invited the frightened Grace. "It isn't no grave. It's just a red handkerchief on a stick."