Sandy now squinted appraisingly over the printed lines of that now ragged volume. Presently his attention was drawn to one living line that flashed from the page with the swift play of the sword of D’Artagnan. Sandy’s mouth gaped, and his gaze grew intent. Presently, still reading, he retired from the barn, and, followed by Viper, climbed aboard a huge hay wagon that stood beneath the open window of the big loft.
All of that afternoon Hilda McPherson searched in vain for “The Three Musketeers.” The mystery of its disappearance from the loft tormented her, for she had reached a portion of the tale that had to be finished. What had become of Porthos when—Hilda felt that she had to know the sequel of that especial episode “or bust” with unsatisfied curiosity. The story had seized upon her imagination.
The blazing sunlight of the July afternoon was softening and the mellow tone that would presently settle into the misty gleam of the reluctantly-ending day was beginning to tint the land, when Hilda looked forth from the hay loft window and perceived something directly below her that was brick red in colour. It stuck out from a loaded hay wagon. His dog curled beside him, half buried in the deep hay, book propped before him, Sandy, as his sister had done, had dropped out of this world of ours and was soaring into realms of another time.
Hilda’s eyes widened with amazement and righteous indignation. A moment of pause only, poised on the window sill of the loft. Then down she dropped squarely into the lap of the great hay wagon. There was the smothered sound of murmuring and scrambling under the hay; the delighted bark of the entertained dog, uncertain whether this was a contest or a game, and then two heads, plentifully besprinkled with straw and hay arose to the surface and two wrathful, angry faces glared across at each other.
“That’s mine!”
“It ain’t!”
“It is, I say. I had it first.”
“Don’t care if you did. Viper found it.”
“That cur stole it. I hid it in the loft. You give it up to me, do you hear me?”
“Yeeh, don’t you see me givin’ it up. My dog found it for me, and finding’s keepings, see?”