Meanwhile his mother’s smiling face beamed out of the dark loft.  Then she came down the ladder.  She had seen him come and enter the cellar, by chance she was in the loft when he reached the kitchen, but she had kept quiet to enjoy the joke.

Next time the Woodpecker went to the cellar he found a paper with this on it:  “Notice to hostile Injuns—­Next time you massacree this settlement, bring back the pail, and don’t leave the covers off the milk pans.”

Yan had followed the fence that ran south of the house.  There was plenty of cover, but he crawled on hands and knees, going right down on his breast when he came to places more open than the rest.  In this way he had nearly reached the garden when he heard a noise behind and, turning, he saw Sappy.

“Here, what are you following me for?  Your straw pointed the other way.  You ain’t playing fair.”

“Well, I don’t care, I ain’t going home. You fixed it up so my straw would point that way.  It ain’t fair, an’ I won’t do it.”

“You got no right following me.”

“I ain’t following you, but you keep going just the place I want to go.  It’s you following me, on’y keepin’ ahead.  I told you I was after cherries.”

“Well, the cherries are that way and I’m going this way, and I don’t want you along.”

“You couldn’t get me if you wanted me.”

“Erh——­”

“Erh——­”

So Sappy went cherryward and Yan waited awhile, then crawled toward the fruit garden.  After twenty or thirty yards more, he saw a gleam of red, then under it a bright yellow eye glaring at him.  He had chanced on a hen sitting on her nest.  He came nearer, she took alarm and ran away, not clucking, but cackling loudly.  There were a dozen eggs of two different styles, all bright and clean, and the hen’s comb was bright red.  Yan knew hens.  This was easy to read:  Two stray hens laying in one nest, and neither of them sitting yet.

“So ho!  Straws show which way the hens go.”

He gathered up the eggs into his hat and crawled back toward the tree where all had to meet.

But before he had gone far he heard a loud barking, then yells for help, and turned in time to see Guy scramble up a tree while Cap, the old Collie, barked savagely at him from below.  Now that he was in no danger Sappy had the sense to keep quiet.  Yan came back as quickly as possible.  The Dog at once recognized and obeyed him, but doubtless was much puzzled to make out why he should be pelted back to the house when he had so nobly done his duty by the orchard.

“Now, you see, maybe next time you’ll do what the medicine straw tells you.  Only for me you’d been caught and fed to the pigs, sure.”

“Only for you I wouldn’t have come.  I wasn’t scared of your old Dog, anyway.  Just in about two minutes more I was comin’ down to kick the stuffin’ out o’ him myself.”

“Perhaps you’d like to go back and do it now.  I’ll soon call him.”