Dog nodded. The scheme was good—for what it was meant to accomplish.
“We need a little more salt, though,” he added. “Wait a minute.”
Again he went to the trunk and engaged in profane search, returning at last with a nugget mounted on a pin.
“Forgot this one,” he said, and wrenched the pin from where it was soldered to the back of the nugget. “Take this and plant it.”
The washing-machine rocking device kept Percival happy all next day, and his eye was lighted by a particularly bright gleam of elation as he settled to the fried pork and beans at dinner next night.
“If we just had about one more piece of salt,” mourned Ducky, after Percival had climbed the ladder, but Dog shook his head. The stick-pin had cleaned the place of nuggets.
“We’ve done all we can,” he said. “I wish he’d find something of his own.”
But Ducky shook his head at this. No chance. And yet, come dinner time next night, here sits Percival again, looking as cocky as a cat that’s eaten a canary. Throughout the meal Dog and Ducky cast anxious eyes at him. Percival finished, pushed his plate toward the center of the table, got up, thrust his hand deep into his right-hand trouser pocket and brought forth something wrapped in a bit of paper. He unwrapped the paper and held out for inspection a nugget twice as large as any that the conspirators had planted for him.
“I worked in new ground today, farther up the creek. Good night.”
They watched him, fascinated, as he climbed the ladder to the loft.