More than once shouts of "Snake!" were sent up, and each time this proved to be a false alarm, or the snake must have made good its escape, for no horrible crawling reptile came to view, in spite of the most desperate thrashing of bushes, and beating of brush, following each alarm.
"Oh, see here!" called Louise, who had wandered some distance from her companions. "Here is the dearest little dove, eating our lunch crumbs. He carried them out here to safety."
Quietly the girls stole up to a pretty soft spot in the thicket, and there found a little pigeon enjoying the last crumbs of Cleo's cake. Although the approach meant some more crackling of leaves and sticks, the bird seemed not the least disturbed, in fact, as the scouts looked down he looked up with a perky twist of his graceful throat.
"Must be tame," suggested Louise. "I hope those children down by the water don't come romping up to scare him off."
Cautiously Grace approached in that steady, definite manner that always seems to mean still motion. The bird hardly fluttered, but when the girl threw out a few more crumbs he proudly hopped toward her.
"He has something tied to his leg," said Grace, keeping her voice down to almost a murmur. "I believe he is a carrier pigeon."
"Surely," agreed Louise, for the tiny speck on the bird's leg was plainly an aluminum strip such as marks the carrier bird.
The same thought flashed through the mind of each—who would be sending private messages through that grove!
"I suppose we wouldn't dare look at the note," said Grace. "They are always in a piece of gelatine under the wing."
"My, no," replied Cleo, "that would be equivalent to robbing the mails."