Part 10 (2/2)

”Crickey! I don't like this a bit,” he panted.

But the runaway was no coward. He was quite sure that there was nothing in these woods that would really hurt him. He could still see some distance back from the road on either hand, and he selected a big chestnut tree at the foot of which, between two roots, there was a hollow filled with leaves and trash.

This made not a bad couch, as he very soon found. He thrust the bag that had become so heavy farther into the hollow and lay down before it. But tired as he was, he could not at once go to sleep.

Somewhere near he heard a trickle of water. The sound made the boy thirsty. He finally got up and stumbled through the brush, along the roadside in the direction of the running water.

He found it--a spring rising in the bank above the road. Sammy carried a pocket-cup and soon satisfied his thirst by its aid. He had some difficulty in finding his former nest; but when he did come to the hollow between two huge roots, with the broadly spreading chestnut tree boughs overhead, he soon fell asleep.

Nothing disturbed Sammy thereafter until it was broad daylight. He awoke as much refreshed as though he had slept in his own bed at home.

Young muscles recover quickly from strain. All he remembered, too, was the fun he had had the day before, while he was foot-loose. Even the disaster to his trousers seemed of little moment now. He had always envied ragged urchins; they seemed to have so few cares and n.o.body to bother them.

He ran with a whoop to the spring, drank his fill from it, and then doused his face and hands therein. The sun and air dried his head after his ablutions and there was n.o.body to ask if ”he had washed behind his ears.”

He returned to the chestnut tree where he had lain all night, whistling.

Of course he was hungry; but he believed there must be some house along the road where he could buy breakfast. Sammy Pinkney was not at all troubled by his situation until, stooping to look into the cavity near which he had slept, he made the disconcerting discovery that his extension-bag was not there!

”Wha--wha--_what_?” stammered Sammy. ”It's gone! Who took it?”

That he had been robbed while he went to the spring was the only explanation there could be of this mysterious disappearance. At least, so thought Sammy.

He ran around the tree, staring all about--even up into the thickly leaved branches where the cl.u.s.ters of green burrs were already formed.

Then he plunged through the fringe of bushes into the road to see if he could spy the robber making away in either direction.

All he saw was a rabbit hopping placidly across the highway. A jay flew overhead with raucous call, as though he laughed at the bereft boy. And Sammy Pinkney was in no mood to stand being laughed at!

”You mean old thing!” he shouted at the flas.h.i.+ng jay--which merely laughed at him again, just as though he did know who had stolen Sammy's bag and hugely enjoyed the joke.

In that bag were many things that Sammy considered precious as well as necessary articles of clothing. There was his gun and the shot for it!

How could he defend himself from attack or shoot game in the wilds, if either became necessary?

”Oh, dear!” Sammy finally sniffed, not above crying a few tears as there was n.o.body by to see. ”Oh, dear! Now I've _got_ to wear this good suit--although 'tain't so good anyway with holes in the pants.

”But all my other things--crickey! Ain't it just mean? Whoever took my bag, I hope he'll have the baddest kind of luck. I--I hope he'll have to go to the dentist's and have all his teeth pulled, so I do!” which, from a recent experience of the runaway, seemed the most painful punishment that could be exacted from the thief.

Wis.h.i.+ng any amount of ill-fortune for the robber would not bring back his bag. Sammy quite realized this. He had his money safely tied into a very grubby handkerchief, so that was all right. But when he started off along the road at last, he was in no very cheerful frame of mind.

CHAPTER IX--THINGS GO WRONG

Of course there was no real reason why life at the old Corner House should not flow quite as placidly with Ruth away as when the elder sister was at home. It was a fact, however, that things seemed to begin to go wrong almost at once.

Having written the notice advertising the silver bracelet as though it had been found by chance, Agnes made Neale run downtown again at once with it so as to be sure the advertis.e.m.e.nt would be inserted in the next morning's _Post_.

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