“Oh, I hope he didn’t hurt that pussy,” said Sue.

“Maybe it wasn’t a pussy,” suggested Bunny.

“What makes you say that?” demanded Sue.  “Didn’t you see something gray run across the grass, and didn’t Dix run after it?”

“Yes.  And the gray thing ran up a tree.  But maybe it wasn’t a kittie,” said Bunny, shaking his head to show he did not agree with his sister.

“Let’s go and see what it is,” said she, and together the two hurried faster than ever toward the tree at the bottom of which Dix and Splash were having a great barking time.

“Where are you going?” asked Mrs. Brown.

“Just over to this tree,” answered Bunny, pointing to it.

“Well, don’t go any farther than that,” warned his mother.

“No, we’re just going to see what it was Dix chased up into it,” went on Sue.  “I said it was a cat but Bunny says——­”

“I don’t say what it is yet!” interrupted her brother.  “I want to see it first.”

They reached the tree, and the two dogs were so interested in looking up and barking at something in it that they paid little attention to the children.  Dix actually stepped on Sue’s feet and nearly made her fall down, while Splash tried to jump over Bunny’s head.  But the dog did not quite do it, and fell on Bunny instead, knocking him down.

“Oh, Bunny, are you hurt?” cried Sue.

“No, I guess not—­much,” answered Bunny slowly.  “But I’m all—­mussed up!” and he looked at Splash, who was again rushing toward the boy, not so much with the idea of playing with him as of getting nearer to the tree so he could bark at the gray animal.

“Down, Splash!  Down!” cried Bunny sharply, and the dogs at once stopped barking.  They had learned to mind the little boy.

Both dogs looked up into the tree and whined.  It was just the way dogs do who are in the habit of chasing cats, and who make this noise, perhaps to show how sorry they are that they cannot get at the poor pussies to roll them over in the grass.

But Dix and Splash were not what one could call cat-chasing dogs.  True, they had done it when they were small dogs, just over being puppies, but, of late years, Splash had given up that fun, and what little the children had seen of Dix they had not noticed him chasing cats.

“That’s what makes me think it isn’t a cat they’ve got up that tree now,” said Bunny, speaking of cat-chasing to his sister.

“But it looked like a cat,” said she.

The dogs were quieter now, though they both kept on peering up into the tree and whining softly, though they did not jump about so hard and try to leap over Bunny and Sue.

“Oh, I see it!” suddenly exclaimed Sue.

“See what?” asked Bunny.

“The cat—­the gray thing—­whatever it was ran up the tree,” and Sue pointed her finger to the crotch where one of the lowest big branches joined the trunk.