There was a big stack of corn fodder near at hand; but the interested young folk did not pay much attention to it at the moment. They did not even observe a certain rustling in the fodder when they first came to the woodchuck burrow; nor did they see a pair of very bright eyes, belonging to a young man with very red hair, that peered out at them when they began smoking out the denizen of the hole in the hillside. This red-haired person only grinned at them and then lay down for another nap in the fodder. He was laying up sleep for the coming night, for he expected to “jump” the fast freight to the West that passed through Dalton at midnight, and only stopped at the water-tank below this hill.
The three boys and Tavia waited at the other end of the woodchuck burrow.
“If he doesn’t get heart-failure, or apoplexy, or something like that, Mr. Woodchuck will run out in about two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” chuckled Johnny Travers.
“Your lamb has an awful long tail, Johnny,” quoth his sister, teasingly, after a minute or so.
And then she suddenly joined the boys in a whoop of excitement. The nose of the woodchuck appeared. Little Rogue hit it a crack and the creature didn’t run far. But Johnny waited with uplifted “whanger” and there appeared a second woodchuck. They got that one, too—and both were pretty plump, for all that they had been hived up during the winter.
“We’ve got enough for a bake—a small one,” said Roger.
“Aw, wait,” said his brother. “There’s another hole. Come on, Johnny! Let’s make a new torch.”
Johnny obeyed and Joe led the way around the stack. There were signs of another woodchuck hollow. They repeated the performance with the torch here, and then grouped about the other outlet to welcome the groundhog when he appeared.
In ten minutes they had a third fat carcass, and the boys began to skin and clean them.
“Nat was laughing at us,” said Joe Dale. “I reckon he and Cousin Ned will be glad enough to eat some of these fellows.”