eside the chimney and spread them out
for a bed. He went into the house whistling; he didn't hear a word of
the chapter his mother read out of the Bible. Before he went to bed in
the shed-room, he raised the window.

"You all right, old feller?" he called.

Underneath the house he heard the responsive tap-tap of a tail in the
dry dust. He climbed out of his clothes, leaving them in a pile in the
middle of the floor, tumbled into bed, and pulled the covers high over
him.

"Golly!" he said. "Oh, golly!"

Next day he hunted till sundown. The Christmas holidays were on and
there was no thought of school. He went only now and then, anyway, for
since his father's death there was too much for him to do at home. He
hunted in the opposite direction from Old Man Thornycroft's. It was
three miles away; barriers of woods and bottoms and hills lay between,
and the old man seldom stirred beyond the boundaries of his own farm;
but Davy wanted to be on the safe side.

There were moments, though, when he thought of the old man, and wondered
if he had missed the dog and whether he would make any search for him.
There were sober moments, too, when he thought of his mother and Mr.
Kirby, and wished he had told them the truth. But then the long-drawn
bay of the hound would come from the bottoms ahead, and he would hurry
to the summons, his face flushed and eager. The music of the dog
running, the sound of the shots, and his own triumphant yells started
many an echo among the silent frosted hills that day. He came home with
enough meat to last a week--six rabbits. As he hurried into the yard he
held them up for the inspection of his mother, who was feeding the
chickens.

"He's the finest rabbit dog ever was, Ma! Oh, golly, he can follow a
trail! I never see anything like it, Ma, I never did! I'll skin 'em an'
clean 'em after supper. You ought to have saw him, Ma! Golly!"

And while he chopped the wood and milked the cow and fed the mule, and
skinned the rabbits, he saw other days ahead like this, and whistled and
sang and talked to the hound, who followed close at his heels every step
he took.

Then one afternoon, while he was patching the lot fence, with Buck
sunning himself near the woodpile, came Old Man Thornycroft. Davy
recognized his buggy as it turned the bend in the road. He quickly
dropped his tools, called Buck to him and got behind the house where he
could see without being seen. The buggy stopped in the road, and the ol