“I certainly will, Arthur, and hope both the other fellows will be along, for they ought to be in the pictures.”
“Oh! there’s only going to be one, you know, Hugh; unless we happen to strike a bevy of young partridges with their mother. I’ve got a quail sitting on her nest, but always wanted a group picture of the partridge family.”
“Well, we’ll have to order up one for you, then, Arthur,” chuckled Bud.
Just then Arthur, not looking very closely where he stepped, stumbled over something that lay in the trail.
“Look here, fellows, what does this mean?” he exclaimed, stooping to pick up the object. “A splinter of wood torn from a tree, and as fresh as anything! Why, I wonder if the lightning could have done that? Look around, fellows, and—oh! just see what happened to that tree! Why, the whole ground’s covered with the wreckage! What a terrible thing a bolt of lightning is, isn’t it, Hugh?”
“One of the most fearful things known,” Hugh replied; “but look again, Arthur, and tell me if you think you ever saw this same tree before!”
Billy fairly held his breath as he waited to hear what the other’s reply would be, for he had already seen that which told him the truth.
“Why, you don’t expect me to have a speaking acquaintance with every tree in the woods, do you, Hugh?” remarked Arthur. And then, seeing that the other was really in earnest, he looked again, and more closely, after which he continued: “Well, now that you mention it, seems to me there is something familiar about that riven stump. My stars! Hugh, it’s the big oak with the hollow trunk!”
There was a vein of awe in the boy’s voice when he said this, and his eyes were staring as hard as could be at the telltale evidence before him.
“And, Arthur, it doesn’t look quite so cozy in that hollow as when you wanted us to hide there from the storm, does it?” Hugh asked him.