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"All you can think of, Doughnuts, is what you're going to get to eat when the next meal time comes around." "Well, I enjoy thinking of that so much, that I'd be foolish to think of anything else," said Jimmy, serenely. "You win, Jimmy," said Bob, as he and Joe shouted with laughter at Herb's discomfiture.
They all laughed at this anecdote, which pleased Herb immensely. "I know lots more, any time you want to hear them," he ventured, hopefully. "Better not take a chance on spoiling that one, Herb," advised Joe. "That was unusually good for you, I must admit." "Herb's jokes wouldn't be so bad if he'd stick to regular ones," said Bob.
But a vision of himself, stripped of "sweater" and moccasins, in cavalry rig, becrossed and beribboned, serving under another flag than the Stars and Stripes, was too much for Herb's gravity and for the grim regrets which wrung him to-night. "Oh, sugar!" he gasped; and his laughter was like a rocket shooting up from his mighty throat, and exploding in a hundred sparkles of merriment.
"If I weren't so busy eating this pie, Jimmy, I'd be tempted to make you take back those cruel words." "Nary take," said Jimmy, positively. "I said 'em, and I'll stick by 'em. Besides, it's so. Isn't it, Bob? I'll leave it to you." "Well," said Bob, "in the interests of truth I'll have to admit that as a rule I'd rather have a stomach ache than listen to one of Herb's home-made jokes.
His fears turned out to have been groundless, for when they arrived at the Layton home, without having seen or heard anything more of the bullies on the way, they found all their delicate apparatus unharmed. And other than Herb's swollen lip and a few slight bruises, they had received little damage themselves from the encounter.
A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in the bank. Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature made, one whisper was hissed by Herb's tongue into the ears of his comrades. It was: "Gee whittaker! he's a big one! Listen to them shovels against the trees!"
These Cyrus and Dol had busied themselves in cutting. Neal thought of other work for his fingers. Getting hold of Herb's axe when the owner was not using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches.
Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and cold; and Cyrus, as captain, ordered an immediate forced march to Greenville. Under Herb's guidance that march was made with singularly few hardships. He managed to hire a "jumper" from a new settler who had a farm a couple of miles from their camp.
He himself had engaged Buck in combat, but as he saw Herb go down, he dealt Buck a staggering blow on the point of the jaw and leaped to Herb's assistance. Hot rage filled his heart and the wild thrill of combat tingled along every nerve.
Following Herb's example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomach under a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forest pantomime which was being acted in the valley. Cautiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged a few steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
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