I got out as leisurely as a lord; all I could see was a small coil of wire, red hot. “I see it,” I said, solemnly. “The thing’s appendix is red hot. Give me an axe and I’ll open it up.”
Jack howled with delight. I thought he’d die. Horatius smiled grimly. But it was one that said:
“I’ll even this up yet.”
“Put in your shells; we’ll hunt around toward that farm house, and up there I’ll ’phone to town and have Smith come out and fix it.”
Thus he spoke, and I agreed. In fact, there was nothing else to do. We rolled the machine aside, the dogs were let out, and we were soon quartering a field toward a farm house.
“Whose place is this?” I asked, as the dogs began to hunt down the wind.
“Old Bogair’s a French Canadian. He came here three years ago from Canada—ticklish old fellow, but he knows me, and it’s all right.”
I felt secure, for while the game law is very strict, requiring written permission to hunt on one’s premises, intended as a guard against pot hunters, no gentleman ever objected to another hunting on his farm.
We started through a cedar wood in a glady spot and I saw Jack beginning to nose the wind and to throw up his head for quail. Then I heard my companion calling lustily for me to come. I rushed up, Jack at my heels.
“What is it?” I asked.