"It's splendid!" said Susie.
Vosh Stebbins had his axe out of the sleigh now, and seemed determined to show what he could do.
It looked like the easiest thing in the world. He and the deacon merely swung their axes up, and let them go down exactly in the right place; and the glittering edges went in, in, with a hollow thud, and at every other cut a great chip would spring away across the snow.
"It doesn't take either of them a great while to bring a tree down," said Corry. "You fetch along that other axe, and we'll try one. They've all got to come down: so it doesn't make any difference what we cut into."
The girls were contented to stay in the sleigh and look on, and the oxen stood as still as if they intended never to move again.
"Susie!" exclaimed Pen, "here comes Ponto. Nobody knew where he was when we started."
There he was now, however,—the great shaggy, long-legged house-dog,—coming up the road with a succession of short, sharp barks, as if he were protesting against being left out of such a picnic-party as that.
"Pen! he's coming right into the sleigh."
"No, he ain't. You'll see. He'll go after Corry. He's only smelling to see if the guns are here. He knows what they mean."
"Will he hunt?"