“It’s the easiest way,” nodded Tom.  “Bring me a switch and I’ll make the arrow while you make the bow.”

“Who’s got a piece of string?” inquired Roger a few minutes later as he held up his handiwork for the admiration of his friends,

James produced the necessary string and Roger strung the bow.

“Now, then, let’s see what it will do,” he said.

Adjusting the arrow he drew the cord and sent the simple shaft whizzing through the air against a tree where it stuck in the bark for an instant before it fell to the ground.

“Do you think it’s safe for Dicky to have an arrow as sharp as that?” inquired Helen.

“That’s not sharp enough to do any damage.  It didn’t hold in the tree.”

Dicky was delighted with his new toy and went off to test its power, followed by Elisabeth of Belgium, Sheila, Luigi and Pietro Paterno, Olga Peterson and Vasili and Vladimir Vereshchagin.  The romper-clad band stirred the amused smiles of the elders watching them.

“They certainly are the cunningest little dinks that ever happened!” cried Ethel Brown, establishing herself comfortably to help make small bows and arrows for the rest of the flock.

The girls as well as the boys of the United Service Club knew how to use a jacknife and the diminutive weapons of the chase were soon ready.

The Ethels were hunting through the luncheon basket for string when a howl from the other side of the field made them drop what was in their hands and rush toward the trees where the children were playing.  The mothers followed them, Mrs. Paterno and Mrs. Vereshchagin in the lead.

“I certainly hope it’s not the little Paterno,” said Ethel Blue breathlessly to Ethel Brown as they ran.  “Mrs. Paterno never will forgive Dicky if he’s got him into trouble again.”

They concluded when they came in sight of the group of children that the Italian woman had run from nervousness and the Russian because she recognized the voice of her offspring, for it was Vladimir whose yells were resounding through the air.  Dicky was bending over him and the other children were standing around so that the runners as they approached could not see what was the matter.

Mrs. Vereshchagin increased her speed, uttering sounds that fell strangely on her listeners’ ears.  The group of children fell away as their elders came near, and the Ethels, who were in front, saw that Vladimir was pinned to a tree by Dicky’s arrow which had pierced the fullness of his rompers.  He could not be hurt in the least, but the strangeness of his position had startled and angered him and was causing the shrieks that had frightened them all.

Fortunately for Dicky, Mrs. Vereshchagin, unlike Mrs. Paterno, had a sense of humor, and as soon as she saw that her child was neither injured nor in danger she burst into laughter as loud as his cries of rage and terror.  Roger quickly unfastened him from the tree to which he was bound and handed him over to his mother, none the worse for his experience except that his rompers were torn.  Turning to Dicky, Roger decreed that the head must be taken from his arrow.