“I don’t see why you want to go,” said McLean.  “I have no business to let you out today at all.”

“It’s me chickens,” whispered Freckles in distress.  “You see, I was just after finding yesterday, from me new book, how they do be nesting in hollow trees, and there ain’t any too many in the swamp.  There’s just a chance that they might be in that one.”

“Go ahead,” said McLean.  “That’s a different story.  If they happen to be there, why tell Duncan he must give up the tree until they have finished with it.”

Then he climbed on a wagon and was driven away.  Freckles hurried into the swamp.  He was a little behind, yet he could see the men.  Before he overtook them, they had turned from the west road and had entered the swamp toward the east.

They stopped at the trunk of a monstrous prostrate log.  It had been cut three feet from the ground, over three-fourths of the way through, and had fallen toward the east, the body of the log still resting on the stump.  The underbrush was almost impenetrable, but Duncan plunged in and with a crowbar began tapping along the trunk to decide how far it was hollow, so that they would know where to cut.  As they waited his decision, there came from the mouth of it—­on wings—­a large black bird that swept over their heads.

Freckles danced wildly.  “It’s me chickens!  Oh, it’s me chickens!” he shouted.  “Oh, Duncan, come quick!  You’ve found the nest of me precious chickens!”

Duncan hurried to the mouth of the log, but Freckles was before him.  He crashed through poison-vines and underbrush regardless of any danger, and climbed on the stump.  When Duncan came he was shouting like a wild man.

“It’s hatched!” he yelled.  “Oh, me big chicken has hatched out me little chicken, and there’s another egg.  I can see it plain, and oh, the funny little white baby!  Oh, Duncan, can you see me little white chicken?”

Duncan could easily see it; so could everyone else.  Freckles crept into the log and tenderly carried the hissing, blinking little bird to the light in a leaf-lined hat.  The men found it sufficiently wonderful to satisfy even Freckles, who had forgotten he was ever sore or stiff, and coddled over it with every blarneying term of endearment he knew.

Duncan gathered his tools.  “Deal’s off, boys!” he said cheerfully.  “This log mauna be touched until Freckles’ chaukies have finished with it.  We might as weel gang.  Better put it back, Freckles.  It’s just out, and it may chill.  Ye will probably hae twa the morn.”

Freckles crept into the log and carefully deposited the baby beside the egg.  When he came back, he said:  “I made a big mistake not to be bringing the egg out with the baby, but I was fearing to touch it.  It’s shaped like a hen’s egg, and it’s big as a turkey’s, and the beautifulest blue—­just splattered with big brown splotches, like me book said, precise.  Bet you never saw such a sight as it made on the yellow of the rotten wood beside that funny leathery-faced little white baby.”