“What’ll we do when we see that red-haired lumberman?” asked the smaller boy.

“We’ll ask him for daddy’s old coat and the papers.”

“But maybe he’ll want the old coat,” suggested Laddie.

“Oh, well, he can have that,” Russ answered.  “Daddy gave him that, anyhow.  But we can ask him for the papers.”

“S’posin’ he hasn’t got ’em?”

“What makes you s’pose so much?” demanded Russ.  “Wait till we get there, and we can tell what to do.”

“All right,” agreed Laddie.  “I can be thinking of a riddle.  Maybe I could ask the lumberman a riddle, Russ.  Could I?”

“Maybe.  But maybe he doesn’t like ’em.  Some folks don’t.”

“I could ask him an easy one, about the miller’s hat, or about why the tickets don’t get mad when the conductor punches ’em.”

“No, don’t ask him that one,” Russ said.

“Why not?”

“’Cause that one about the tickets is too hard—­nobody knows the answer.  You don’t yourself.”

“I know I don’t, but maybe the lumberman might.  Maybe he’d like to answer it.  I guess I’ll ask him.”

“No, don’t do it,” advised Russ.  “He’s a poor lumberman, or he wouldn’t want an old coat.  And if he’s poor he wouldn’t pay money for tickets, so he wouldn’t know why the conductor punched ’em.”

Laddie thought about this a while.

“All right,” he said, finally, as Zip trotted along down the hill, and came out on a level road that led to Green Pond.  “I’ll make up a new riddle for the lumberman,” he went on.  “Or I could ask him about Zip’s breath coming in short pants.”

“All right, ask him that,” agreed Russ.  “I hope he gives us the papers.”

Mr. Barker’s place was on the shores of Green Pond.  In fact the man owned the whole pond—­or little lake, for that was what it was—­and all the woods around it.  His house, a very big one, stood in the woods not far from the pond, and all about the house were beautiful grounds, with roads and paths leading through them.  And around the house was a high iron fence, with gate-ways here and there.

Russ and Laddie, riding in their soap-box dog-cart, came along the public road.  Ahead of them they could see the big iron fence around Mr. Barker’s place.  They knew it, for they had driven past it the week before with Grandma Bell, when she took the six little Bunkers and Daddy Bunker and Mother Bunker for a picnic ride in the big carriage.

“There’s the place,” said Laddie, pointing.

“I see it,” returned Russ.  “Now we’ll drive in and find the lumberman and get daddy’s papers.”

Russ guided Zip up to one of the big iron gates, and as the boys turned into the drive a man came out of a little house near the entrance and held up his hand.  It was just as the policeman does in the city street when he wants the automobiles and wagons to stop, so Russ called to Zip: 

“Whoa!”

The dog had learned to stop when any one driving him said this, so now he halted and, being tired, he stretched out on the ground.  His harness was loose, so he could do this.