“We won’t warm him,” explained Johnny. “Don’t you see we’ve got the wire tied to his tail with a piece of string? If the wire should get hot he’d never feel it. Now come on, Joe. Pour on the oil. You watching that other hole, Rogue? We don’t want the old groundhog to fool us.”
“He hasn’t poked his snout out here yet,” declared the smallest boy, with confidence.
But Tavia, who had begun to look worried, suddenly interfered.
“Say! I want to know,” she demanded, “wherever you boys learned to smoke a woodchuck out in this way? It’s not nice. I don’t like it——”
“Aw, listen to her!” ejaculated Johnny Travers. “Don’t be a softie, Tavia.”
“I tell you it doesn’t hurt the turtle,” said Joe Dale.
“I don’t care,” said Tavia, warmly. “Even if it only looks as though it might hurt him, we shouldn’t do it. We shouldn’t even be willing to stand for animals appearing to be hurt. It’s not nice—it’s not kindly——”
“Aw, shucks!” began her brother again; but Joe shut him up quickly:
“That’s all right, Jack. If Tavia says we’re not to do it, we won’t. Let him go,” and in a moment he had released the reptile, which began crawling off desperately as though he knew just how narrow an escape he had had from becoming an animated torch.
For a minute or two Johnny was inclined to pout. But Tavia (who knew as much about woodchuck hunting as the boys themselves) quickly made a brush torch, and they saturated that with oil, touched it off with a match, and pushed it down the woodchuck hole.