CHAPTER XV.

Wild Geese.

About two o’clock in the afternoon the boys concluded that it was about time to start for home; so, after putting out the fire and fastening the door of the cabin, they set out.  Archie led the way, with a ’coon slung over each shoulder, and another dangling from his belt behind.  The others followed close after him, in “Indian file.”  In this manner they marched through the woods, joking and shouting, and talking over the events of the day, and now and then indulging in a hearty laugh when they happened to think how Archie looked when he came into the camp, dripping wet.  But Archie took matters very good-naturedly, and replied,

“If I had come back without the ’coon, I should never have heard the last of it; and now you laugh at me because I fell into the drink while I was trying to catch him.”

In half an hour they reached the edge of the timber, and were about to climb over the fence into the cornfield, when a long, loud bark echoed through the woods.

“That’s Brave,” exclaimed Frank; “and,” he continued, as all the dogs broke out into a continuous cry, “they’ve found something.  Let’s go back.”

The boys all agreed to this, and they started back through the woods as fast as their legs could carry them.

A few moments’ run brought them in sight of the dogs, sitting on their haunches at the foot of a stump, that rose to the hight of twenty feet, without leaf or branch.  Near the top were several holes; and, as soon as Frank discovered these, he exclaimed,

“The dogs have got a squirrel in here.”

“How are we going to work to get him out?” inquired Archie.

“Let’s cut the stump down,” said George.

“That’s too much sugar for a cent,” answered Harry.  “That will be working too hard for one squirrel.”

“Why will it?” asked George.  “The stump is rotten.”

And he laid down his ’coon, and walked up and dealt the stump several lusty blows with his ax.

Suddenly two large black squirrels popped out of one of the holes near the top, and ran rapidly around the stump.  Quick as thought, Frank, who was always ready, raised his gun to his shoulder, and one of the squirrels came tumbling to the ground; but, before he had time to fire the second barrel, the other ran back into the hole.

“Hit the tree again, George,” exclaimed Harry, throwing down his ’coon, and bringing his gun to his shoulder.

“It’s no use,” said Frank; “they will not come out again, if you pound on the stump all day.”

George, however, did as his brother had requested, but not a squirrel appeared.

“Let’s cut the tree down,” said Archie.

And, suiting the action to the word, he set manfully to work.

A few blows brought off the outside “crust,” and the heart of the tree was found to be decayed, and, in a few moments, it came crashing to the ground, and was shivered into fragments by the fall.