But the concluding words were almost drowned in Prince’s loud bark as he came bounding toward them, evidently in search of the intruding bugler.
“Find him, Prince, find him as fast as you can and teach him not to intrude into the Ion grounds,” laughed Lulu.
But the bugler’s notes had already died away and Prince’s bark changed to a low growl as he searched for him here and there, but vainly.
“So you have a bugler on the estate, eh?” Croly was saying, with an inquiring glance at Harold. “One of your darkies, I presume? They are a musical race, I know.”
“They are,” Harold replied with unmoved countenance.
“I thought the notes musical and pleasant,” observed Miss Keith, “but they do not seem to have taken the fancy of your dog.”
“Prince—a fine fellow, by the way—is not our dog, but belongs to Max Raymond,” said Herbert. “No, he does not seem to fancy the intruder, whoever he may be.”
“Hark!” cried Rosie, “the bugler is at it again.”
“And this time it is a Scotch air,” remarked Mary Keith. “How soft and sweet it sounds! But it comes from quite another quarter; yet I do not know how the bugler can have changed his position so entirely without any of us catching sight of him as he went.”
“It does seem odd,” said Croly. But his words were nearly drowned in the loud bark of Prince as he rushed in the new direction, with evident intent to oust the intruder this time. His effort was, however, as complete a failure as the former one. The notes of the bugle died softly away, the dog sniffed about the tree from which they had seemed to come, but finally gave it up and trotted away in the direction of the house. “Point out that bugler to me when we come across him, won’t you, Harold?”