"Quib! Quib!" shouted Abe. "Woodchucks! Quib, woodchucks! Right in here. Find 'em!"
Quib was dancing around in a quiver of noisy excitement, for he had caught a sniff of something under the first bush he sprang into.
How he did bark and yelp and scratch, for about a minute!
"Poys! Poys! Vat is all dis? Vat you want vis mein stone-heap, eh?"
It was old Hamburger himself climbing the fence, and he looked longer and leaner just then, and had more pipe in his mouth, than the boys thought they had ever seen before.
"The finest woodchuck you ever saw, Mr. Hamburger," began Cole
Thomas, by way of an apology.
"Vootchuck! Dat's it! Ant so you puts a tog into mein stone-heap, and you steps onto mein grass, ant you knock ober all mein beautiful mullein-stalks and mein thistles and mein scoke-veeds!"
Puff! puff! came the great clouds of smoke from the grim lips of the old German, but it struck Cole Thomas that Mr. Hamburger himself was on the watch for that woodchuck.
Bow-wow-yow-yelp! and Mart shouted:
"There he goes!"