Part 3 (1/2)

And so he still sat and waited, and pretty soon he heard something. But it was not in the hole--not near him at all. It was farther along the creek, and sounded like the footsteps of some one walking stealthily.

Harry looked around quickly, and, about thirty yards from him, he saw a man with a gun. The man was now standing still, looking steadily at him.

At least Harry thought he was, but there was so little light in the woods by this time that he could not be sure about it. What was that man after? Could he be watching him?

Harry was afraid to move. Perhaps the man mistook him for some kind of an animal. To be sure, he could not help thinking that boys were animals, but he did not suppose the man would want to shoot a boy, if he knew it. But how could any one tell that Harry was a boy at that distance, and in that light.

Poor Harry did not even dare to call out. He could not speak without moving something, his lips any way, and the man might fire at the slightest motion. He was so quiet that the musk-rat--it was a musk-rat that lived in the hole--came out of his house, and seeing the boy so still, supposed he was nothing of any consequence, and so trotted noiselessly along to the water and slipped in for a swim. Harry never saw him. His eyes were fixed on the man.

For some minutes longer--they seemed like hours--he remained motionless. And then he could bear it no longer.

”Hel-low!” he cried.

”Hel-low!” said the man.

Then Harry got up trembling and pale, and the man came toward him.

”Why, I didn't know what you were,” said the man.

”Tony Kirk!” exclaimed Harry. Yes, it was Tony Kirk, sure enough, a man who would never shoot a boy--if he knew it.

”What are you doing here,” asked Tony, ”a-squattin' in the dirt at supper-time?”

Harry told him what he was doing, and how he had been frightened, and then the remark about supper-time made him think of his sister. ”My senses!” he cried, ”there's Kate! she must think I'm lost.”

”Kate!” exclaimed Tony. ”What Kate? You don't mean your sister!”

”Yes, I do,” said Harry; and away he ran down the sh.o.r.e of the creek.

Tony followed, and when he reached the big pine-tree, there was Harry gazing blankly around him.

”She's gone!” faltered the boy.

”I should think so,” said Tony, ”if she knew what was good for her.

What's this?” His quick eyes had discovered the paper on the tree.

Tony pulled the paper from the pine trunk and tried to read it, but Harry was at his side in an instant, and saw it was Kate's writing. It was almost too dark to read it, but he managed, by holding it toward the west, to make it out.

”She's gone home,” he said, ”and I must be after her;” and he prepared to start.

”Hold up!” cried Tony; ”I'm going that way. And so you've been getherin'

sumac.” Harry had read the paper aloud. ”There's no use o' leavin' yer bag. Git it out o' the bushes, and come along with me.”

Harry soon found his bag, and then he and Tony set out along the road.

”What are you after?” asked Harry.

”Turkeys,” said Tony.

Tony Kirk was always after turkeys. He was a wild-turkey hunter by profession. It is true there were seasons of the year when he did not shoot turkeys, but although at such times he worked a little at farming and fished a little, he nearly always found it necessary to do something that related to turkeys. He watched their haunts, he calculated their increase, he worked out problems which proved to him where he would find them most plentiful in the fall, and his mind was seldom free from the consideration of the turkey question.