The pictures were soon taken and we were on our way to the low country. Everyone carried a gun but me. Uncle Peter brought up the rear with a wheelbarrow laden with the "'visions."
It was a long walk but such a delightful one that we never once thought of getting tired. Our way lay through a pine forest and was up hill and down dale. Tweedles and I were as well able to take the walk as any of the male persuasion, although it took some time to make Mr. Kent understand that we could get along without his assistance. He would help Dum over a worm fence, much to Dee's and my amusement, as we knew that Dum could vault it with one hand, just as we did.
"I never saw such independent young ladies as you three," he confessed after a daring leap we had made over a gulch. "The girls I know in New York expect to be assisted over every gutter."
"Maybe that's their town manner, and if they were turned loose in the country they might help themselves as well as we can," I suggested. "To tell the truth, it makes me fall down if anyone helps me."
"Do you know," whispered Dee to me, "I verily believe that Reginald Kent person is getting stuck on Dum? I hope he won't shoot her. I don't believe he ever carried a gun before in his life. He handles it like a walking stick."
"He's real nice, don't you think?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, nice enough, but I can't see why Dum lets him boost her over every stick and stone. She's perfectly able-bodied. She looks to me as though she rather liked to be treated like a boneless vertebrate," and Dee looked very disgusted. The fact was that Dum was taking the helping just as she was taking the compliments: in a perfectly natural, girlish way.
"Fond of the country?" asked Mr. Tucker, glancing with an amused twinkle at Mr. Kent's nonchalant manner of holding his gun.
"Oh, yes, fond enough, what I know of it. I've had to stick pretty close to Broadway all my life. I spent a summer down here with the Winns once when I was a kid and that's about the only country I've known."
"Haven't you hunted before?" questioned Dum, jumping back from the barrel of Mr. Kent's new gun that was pointing ominously at her.