The instant Tad loosened his arms from around Ben's neck, the sagacious old fellow sprang forward—not at the hole where Whip went in, but straight across, where there was no hole at all, till he came to make one.
There was a big one there before any boy of them all knew what Ben was up to. How the corn stalks did fly as he pawed his way in and tore them aside with his great strong teeth! If he was not much of a hand at setting up a shock, he was a mouth and four paws at pulling one down.
"Ben! Ben!" shouted Tad. "Come here! Rabbits, Ben—rabbits! Come here, sir."
As if Ben needed anybody to say "rabbits" to him, after he had listened to all that anxious whimpering from Whip!
"Shake the shock a little," said Dan Burrel. "He's in there somewhere."
He suited the action to the word, but that was all that was needed, and down it came, flat on the ground, with a big dog and a small one and five excited boys tearing around among the ruins.
There was a rabbit there too when the shock fell over, but he came out of the confusion with a great leap, and would have made his escape entirely if it had not been for the long legs of old Ben.
There was no time given the rabbit to hunt for another hiding-place, for before the boys and Whip had quite made up their minds what had become of their game, Ben was shaking him by the back of the neck half way down the field.
"I say, boys," said Tad, "we must set this shock up again. There comes Josephus, and if we leave such a mess as this is behind us, he won't let us go after another rabbit."
Josephus was Tad's elder brother, and he had been sent down there by his mother to get a pumpkin for some pies. There were plenty of them, that had been planted among the corn, and it was easy enough to pick out a good one and go back to the house; but Joe saw what the boys were about, and he stood for a moment looking at them.