“Just jealous,” snapped Tavia. “I once knew the loveliest plumber, never charged me a cent for fixing my bike.”
“And you would forget him for this stranger!” said Dorothy, in tragic tones.
“No, indeed. I would think of this one in memory of the o-th-er!” answered Tavia, clapping her hand over her heart, and otherwise giving “volume” to her assertion.
“Well,” sighed Nat, “If it’s all the same to the ladies, we will continue our search for the missing birds. Can’t afford to let them get too far away, and the morning is wasting.”
“Hanged if I’ll tramp another step,” objected Ned, “not for all the birds in Paradise. My feet are so lame now they feel like the day after a ball match, and besides, Nat, unless we get an airship and explore further up, it’s no use. We’ve covered all the lowland territory.”
“All but the swamp,” admitted Nat, “and I have some hopes of the swamp. That would be just the place to hide a barrel full of stolen pigeons.”
“Or we might look in somebody’s pot-pie,” drawled the brother, indifferently.
“No, sir,” declared Dorothy, “Those birds would begin to sing when the pie was opened. Now you boys had better let me take this case. I have a feeling I will be able to land the game. But I can’t have any interference.”
“Go ahead, and good luck,” said Ned. “Take the case, the feeling, the game, the whole outfit. You’re welcome,” and he stretched himself in the hammock with such evident relish that Tavia could not resist slipping around the other side, and giving the hammock a push that “emptied,” the weary boy on the red rug beneath the “corded canopy.” He lay there—turned up a corner of the carpet for a pillow, and remarked that in his earlier days, it was said of him that he could roll out of bed and “finish up on the floor,” and he “guessed he hadn’t quite forgotten the trick.”
“Now this afternoon I’ll go down to the camp,” announced Dorothy. “So don’t expect me back—until you see me.”