In this matter, however, it did not seem as though Margy and Mun Bun could really get into much trouble. They got a little dish and filled it with corn and trotted back to the goose pen. This time the gander did not charge Mun Bun. But the whole flock was down the slope by the water and the little folks had to walk that way along the edge of the fenced lot.

They came to a place where a panel of the fence was crooked. It had been broken, in fact, and it was much easier to push it aside than not. Why! when Mun Bun leaned against it the strip of fence fell right over on to the grass of the goose yard.

"Now see what you've done, Mun Bun!" exclaimed Margy.

"Why—oh—I didn't mean to," sputtered Mun Bun.

"What do you s'pose Mr. Armatage will say?"

"He won't say anything," said Mun Bun briskly. "For he won't see it. And now, Margy, we can throw the corn to those gooseys and ganders much better. See!"

He grabbed a handful of shelled corn out of the dish and scattered it as far as he could toward the flock. At once the gray birds became interested. They stretched their long necks and the big gander uttered a questioning "honk!"

"It's corn—it's real corn!" cried Mun Bun. "Don't be afraid, goosey-goosey-gander," and he shouted with laughter.

Margy threw a handful of corn too. At once the geese drew nearer. When they reached the first kernels they began grabbing them up with that strange shoveling motion with their bills that all geese and ducks make. The children watched them with delight.

But as the geese waddled nearer the old gander began to wiggle his head from side to side and to hiss softly. Margy and Mun Bun looked at each other, and both drew back.

"I don't like that one much," said Margy. "Do you, Mun Bun?"

"I don't like him at all," confessed the little fellow. "I guess we'd better go back. Maybe Mother will be wanting us."

Margy turned as quickly as he did. She had not thrown out all the corn, but as she turned away a few kernels scattered from the dish. Instantly the gander saw this. With a long hiss he started after the two children, and many of his flock kept right behind their leader.

"Oh! Come quick, Mun Bun!" gasped Margy.

Mun Bun seized her hand. As they ran up the slope the corn scattered from the dish. This was enough to keep the flock following. But the big gander did not chase the little boy and girl because of the scattered corn. He was really angry!

The chubby legs of Mun Bun and Margy looked good to that old gander. He ran hissing after them and began to flap his wings. One stroke of one of those wings would knock down either of the children.



CHAPTER XXI

ROSE HAS AN IDEA

It was just like a nightmare, and both Margy and Mun Bun knew what nightmares were. Those are dreams that, when you are "sleeping them," you get chased by something and your feet seem to stick in the mud so that you can't run. It is a very frightful sort of dream. And this adventure the little ones had got into was surely a frightful peril.

The hissing gander, his neck outstretched and his bill wide open, followed the two children with every evidence of wishing to strike them. His flapping wings were as powerful, it seemed, as those of the big sea-eagle that had been caught aboard ship coming down from Boston, and Mun Bun and Margy remembered that creature very vividly.

Others of the flock of geese came on, too. As long as the grains of corn kept dropping from Margy's dish, the ravenous geese would follow, even if they were not savage, as their leader was.

The chubby legs of the two children hardly kept them ahead of the gander's bill. They shrieked at the top of their voices. But for once none of the innumerable colored folks was in sight. Even their friend, the gardener, had disappeared since Mun Bun and Margy had come down to the goose pen.

"Help! Help us!" cried Margy, looking to the world in general to assist.

"Muvver! Muvver!" cried Mun Bun, who held an unshaken belief that Mother Bunker must be always at hand and able to rescue him from any trouble.

Mun Bun thought he felt the cold, hard bill of the gander at his bare legs. He ran so hard that he lost his breath, somewhere. He couldn't even pant, and as for calling out for help again, that was impossible!

Margy dragged him on a few steps, for she was quite strong for a little girl. But she knew that she was overtaken. There was no help for it. The goosey-goosey-gander was going to eat them up!

But if no human being heard the two children in their distress, there was a creature that did. Bobo, the big old hound, who was only chained to his house at night or when Mr. Armatage did not want him following the mules about the plantation, came out of his kennel and stared down the hill. He observed the running and screaming children, and he likewise saw the gander who was his old enemy. They had had many a tilt before, for the gander believed that everything that came near his flock meant mischief.

Bobo's red eyes expanded and the ruff on the back of his neck began to rise. He uttered a low, reverberating bark. It was almost a growl and it sounded threatening. He dashed down the hill with great leaps.

Mun Bun finally pitched over on his face, dragging Margy with him. Margy's corn went spinning about her and the geese fairly scrambled over the two crying children to get at the corn. Perhaps this helped Mun Bun and his sister some, although they did not think so at the moment. At least, while his family scrambled for the grains of corn the gander could not get at the brother and sister to strike them.

And then great Bobo appeared. He bounded into the middle of the flock and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any more. He "honked" for help.

Mun Bun and Margy scarcely knew that they were saved until Bobo thrust his cold, wet muzzle into first one face and then the other of the two little Bunkers. They had become so used to Aunt Jo's great Dane doing that that Bobo's affectionate act did not alarm them.

"The goosey-goosey-gander's gone, Margy!" stammered Mun Bun. "I told you I wouldn't let him bite you."

Whether his sister was much impressed by this statement or not, is not known. However that might be, she fondled Bobo and got upon her feet as quickly as Mun Bun arose.

"Isn't he a good old dog?" cooed Margy.

"He's pretty good I think. But—but let's come away from that goosey-goosey-gander."

Bobo gave a jump and a bark at the gander, and the latter, which had now climbed to its webbed feet, scurried away, the flock following him. It was then, while the two children were fondling Bobo, who liked to have his long ears pulled by a gentle hand, that Russ and Rose Bunker came upon the scene.

Russ and Rose had been down to the burned cabin and had brought away all their letters to Sneezer Meiggs. If the colored boy had never learned to read writing, there was no use in leaving the notices there. So Russ had said, and Rose agreed with him.

"Oh, my dears!" Rose cried out when she saw the little ones so mussed up and with tear-stained faces, "what has happened to you?"

"Don't be afraid of Bobo," said Russ, running too. "He won't hurt you."

"He hurted the goosey-goosey-gander," declared Mun Bun confidently. "He dug his head under the goosey-goosey-gander and flunged him right over on his back."

"But he wouldn't hurt you," declared Rose.

"No," explained Margy. "Bobo came to help us when the gander wanted to bite our legs. At any rate he wanted to bite Mun Bun's legs."

"'Twas your legs he was after, Margy," declared the little fellow, flushing. "I wouldn't let the goosey-goosey-gander bite mine."

"Anyhow," said Margy, "he chased us. And all his hens came too. And Bobo saw him and he came down and drove them off. See! That gander is hissing at us now."

"Bobo is a brave dog," cried Rose, patting the hound.

"He is pretty good, I think," declared Mun Bun. "But next time I go down to that goose place I am going to have a big stick."

"The next time," advised Russ, "don't you go there at all unless Daddy Bunker is with you. I'd be afraid of that old gander myself."

"Oh, would you?" cried the little boy, greatly relieved. "We-ell, I was a teeny bit scared myself."

The children—all nine of them—spent much of their time in Mammy June's room. The old colored woman had ways of keeping them interested and quiet that Mrs. Armatage proclaimed she could not understand. Mother Bunker understood the charm Mammy worked far better.

Mammy June loved children, high and low, rich and poor, good and bad, just so they were children. Therefore, Mammy June could manage them. Russ and Rose, finding themselves mistaken in their first attempt to relieve the old woman's anxiety about her son, wondered in private what they could do to let the absent Sneezer know where his mother was, and how much she wanted to see him.

Russ and Rose Bunker were quite used to thinking things out for themselves. Of course, there were times when Russ had to go to Daddy Bunker for help and his sister had to confess to Mother Bunker that she did not know what to do. For instance, that adventure of Russ's with the sailor-boy aboard the steamship.

But this matter of helping Mammy June's son to find his mother, if by chance he came back to the site of the burned cabin, was solely their own affair, and Russ and Rose realized the fact.

"We ought to be able to do something about it ourselves," declared Russ to his sister. "I'm going to ask Mammy June again if she is sure Sneezer can't read a word of writing."

This he did. Mammy June shook her head somewhat sadly.

"Dat boy always have to wo'k," she said. "When first he went away he sent me back money by mail. The man he wo'ked for sent it. Then Sneezer losed his job. But he never learnt to read hand-writin'. Much as he could do to spell out the big print on the front of the newspapers. That's surely so!"

Rose suddenly thought of something—and perhaps it was not a foolish idea at that.

"Oh, Mammy!" she cried, "can your boy read newspaper print?"

"Sure can. De big print. What yo' call de haidlines in big print. Sure can."

"Oh!" murmured Rose, and she dragged Russ away to confer with him in secret.



CHAPTER XXII

THE STRANGE CRY

Rose Bunker's idea was too good to tell in general. Some ideas are too good to keep; but Russ and Rose decided that this one was not in that class. They determined to tell nobody—not even Mammy June or Daddy or Mother Bunker—about what they proposed to do to help the old colored woman.

They had tried once, and failed. And Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior, had laughed at them. Now they proposed to do what Rose had thought of, and keep it secret from everybody.

"Of course," Rose said, "nothing may come of it."

"But that won't be your fault, Rose," said her brother. "It is a perfectly scrumptious idea."

"Do you think so?" asked Rose, much pleased by this frank praise.

"Sure I do. And we'll do it to-night. Then the Armatages won't know and—and laugh at us."

For they had found Philly and Alice and Frane, Junior, rather trying. Not having their childish imaginations so well developed as the six little Bunkers had, the children of the plantation were altogether too matter-of-fact. Many childish plays that the Bunkers enjoyed did not appeal to their little hosts at all.

For instance, when Russ invented some brand new and charming, simple play for all to join in, Philly and Alice and Frane just drifted away and would have nothing to do with it. They were too polite to criticize; but Russ knew that the Armatage children felt themselves "too grown up" to be interested in the building of a steamboat or the driving of an imaginary motor-car.

His little brothers and sisters, however, were constantly teasing Russ to make something new. They enjoyed traveling in reality so much, did the six little Bunkers, that, as Daddy laughingly said, traveling in a wheelbarrow would have amused them.

So this day when Russ made a whole freight train with empty chicken coops, with a caboose at the end and a big engine in front, only Frane took an interest in it aside from the Bunkers themselves. And perhaps his interest was, only held because Russ agreed to make him the engineer while Laddie was fireman.

As for Russ himself, he was the conductor at the end of the long train. He had to explain very plainly that of course a freight train had a conductor. Every train had to have a "skipper" just like a boat. A railroad man had explained all that to Russ Bunker when the family was on its way to Cowboy Jack's early in the autumn.

"And you-all," said Russ, copying Frane's speech, speaking to the little ones and Rose, "must stay back here with me and be brakemen. When we need the handbrakes, I'll tell you, and you run forward over the coops—I mean the cars—and set the brakes."

"But suppose we get flung off?" asked Vi.

"That you must not do," said her older brother sternly. "If the train is going fast you might get a broken leg. Or if it is going around a curve it would be worse. You must be careful."

"I think this is a dangerous play," said Vi hopefully. There was nobody really more daring than Vi.

The two Armatage girls tried to coax Rose away from the "train"; but Rose liked to play with her brothers and sisters, and she knew that Mother Bunker expected her to. So she excused herself to Philly and Alice.

Unfortunately they took some offense at this. That evening after supper Rose found herself ignored by Phillis and Alice Armatage. At another time this ungenerous act might have hurt the oldest Bunker girl. But she and Russ had their secret plans to carry through, and Rose was glad to get away with her brother in a room where nobody would disturb them.

Again Russ had broken up pasteboard boxes, and he had pen and ink. To make new signs all in "big print" to stick up at the site of Mammy June's burned cabin was more of a task than merely writing them. This was Rose's bright idea. Russ did not deny her powers of invention.

They printed four good signs. Oh, the letters were large and black!

"They ought to be," Russ said. "We've used 'most half a bottle of ink."

"Don't let's tell Philly or any of them," said Rose. "They laugh at so many things we do."

"All right," agreed Russ, although he was less sensitive about being laughed at than his sister.

But this habit the young Armatages had of laughing at what the little Bunkers did caused all the trouble on this night. And it was a night that all of the children and most of the grown folks, too, would be likely to remember.

The Armatage children knew a great deal more about the plantation and the country surrounding it than the Bunkers did. That was only natural. Philly or Alice or Frane, Junior, would not have started off secretly, as Russ and Rose Bunker did, after nine o'clock at night to go down to the place where old Mammy June's cabin had been burned.

To tell the truth, the Armatage children had associated so much with the colored folks about the plantation that they were inclined to believe that there might be such things as "ha'nts." The little Bunkers had heard of "ghosts"; but they looked on such things as being like fairies—something to half-believe in, and shiver about, all the time knowing that they were not real.

So Russ and Rose had no actual fear of haunts when they started down the cart-path toward the wide brook where Russ had had his first adventure catching the big fish.

The colored folks were all at home in their quarters; and although it was a starlight night they were having no celebration. Everything about the plantation seemed particularly quiet. And no sounds at first came to the ears of the brother and sister from the forest.

As they approached the place for which they aimed however there came suddenly a mournful screech from the woods—a sound that seemed to linger longer in their hearing than any strange noise Russ and Rose had ever heard. The brother and sister stopped, frightened indeed, and clung to each other.

"Oh! What's that?" murmured Rose.

"It—it's maybe an owl," returned Russ, trying to think of the most harmless creature that made a noise at night.

"I never heard an owl howl like that," whispered his sister.

"Aw, Rose! owls don't howl. It's wolves that howl—or coyotes such as we saw at Cowboy Jack's. Don't you remember the coyote caught in the trap that you thought was a dog?"

Rose's mind would not be drawn from the thing in question. She said, quite as fearfully:

"Maybe this is a wolf, Russ."

"Of course not," declared the boy trying to speak bravely. "There aren't any wolves in this part of the country. I asked Frane, Junior."

But there was evidently a savage creature here that Russ Bunker had known nothing about, for now it cried out again! Its long, quavering note echoed through the woods and made the boy and girl stand again and shiver.

"I—I guess it isn't any animal after all," said Rose suddenly, and speaking with some relief. "That's a woman. Of course it is. But she must be lost, or something bad has happened to her. Oh, Russ!" she added, suddenly seizing her brother once more. "I know what it must be. And they are almost always ladies, so Phillis says."

"What's that?" demanded Russ, puzzled.

"It's a ha'nt! It's a lady ha'nt! I do believe it must be!"

"Aw, Rose, what you talking about?" demanded her brother, yet secretly quite as much troubled by the strange, eerie sound as she was. "You know that haunts are only make-believe."

"We-ell!" sighed Rose, "maybe that's only a make-believe sound we hear. But—but I don't like it. There!"

For a third time the screech was repeated. It seemed nearer. Russ could not be confident that it was "make-believe." The strange sound seemed very real indeed.



CHAPTER XXIII

A FOUR-LEGGED GHOST

"I don't like that noise a bit," whispered Rose, standing close to her brother. "It—it makes me all shivery."

"But, if it is only just a woman calling——"

"There must be something awful the matter with her, if she has to scream like that," declared Rose.

As they did not hear the noise again for a little while, both of them plucked up courage, and they went on to the burned cabin. The sticks they had set up were still standing. Russ fastened each of the four pasteboard "letters" to a stick at the four corners of Mammy June's ruined house.

There was light enough from the stars for the two children to see quite plainly what they were about. Rose, however, was looking all about them while Russ did the work of setting up the printed signs for Sneezer Meiggs to see if he came home unexpectedly.

"What do you expect to see, Rose?" demanded her brother loftily.

"I don't know. Philly says ha'nts are all in white."

"I don't see anything very white around here," rejoined Russ.

"But there are so many colored folks, perhaps some of the ha'nts might be black," suggested Rose. "Then we wouldn't see them very well in the shadows."

"I don't believe——" began Russ.

The strange shriek was again heard. Russ stopped in his speech. Rose uttered a sharp cry. The screech—and it did sound like a woman's voice, the voice of a woman in fearful pain or fright—seemed very near them.

"It's right over there in that patch of woods," said Russ. "I guess she is lost—or something."

"Do you believe it is only a lady and not a ha'nt, Russ?" demanded his sister.

"Of course it isn't a ha'nt! Such things can't be! And if it was a ghost, a ghost is nothing but air, and how could air have such a voice as that?"

This reasoning seemed to close the argument. Rose felt that her brother must be right. Besides, Russ went right on talking, and talking very bravely.

"I think we ought to see what the matter is with her, Rose. She is in trouble—maybe she is lost and scared."

"So am I scared," murmured Rose.

"But think how much more you would be scared," her brother said seriously, "if you were in those woods alone and didn't know that there was anybody else near."

"I wouldn't make so much fuss about it," muttered Rose, for she suspected the thought in Russ Bunker's mind and she was really too scared to approve of it at once.

"We've got to find her," said the boy impressively.

"Now, Russ!" almost wailed Rose, "you wouldn't go into those woods? Aren't you scared?"

"Of course I'm scared," said Russ. "Who wouldn't be? But just because I am scared I know the woman must be even more scared. She's got to be taken out of the woods and shown where the big house is. Or, if she is a colored lady, we'll take her to the quarters."

"I—I wish Daddy was here," ventured Rose.

"But he isn't here," said Russ, with some vexation. "So we've got to find the woman by ourselves."

"Oh, dear!" murmured Rose.

But she would not let Russ go alone into the patch of forest behind the site of Mammy June's burned cabin; nor did she feel like remaining alone in the clearing. Russ picked up a good sized stick and started toward the woods.

"Let's shout when we get to the edge," whispered Rose.

They did so; but, really, their voices sounded very faint indeed. No reply came. It was several minutes after, and Russ and Rose were quite a distance into the woods and following what seemed to be a half-grown-over path, before the "woman" screamed again.

"Goodness! How hateful that sounds!" cried Rose.

"I guess she is more scared than we are," ventured Russ. "What do you think?"

"I think I'd like to be back at the house," answered Rose.

But Russ would not agree with her. As he went on he grew more confident. They did not see even a rabbit. And Russ and Rose knew that rabbits were often out at night.

If they had but known it, the awful screech that so disturbed them, disturbed the rabbits and the other small fry of the woods much more. At the sound of that terrible hunger-cry all the rabbits, and hares, and birds that nested on the ground or in trees, trembled.

But Russ seemed to grow braver by the minute. And Rose of course could not fail to be inspired by his show of courage. They walked along the path hand in hand, and although they did not speak much for the next few moments, when they did speak it was quite cheerfully.

"I wish she would yell again," said Russ at last. "For we must be getting near to where she was."

"We-ell, if she isn't a ghost——"

Just then the silence of the wood was broken again by the cry. The boy and the girl halted involuntarily. No matter how brave Russ might appear to be, there was a tone to that scream that made shivers go up and down his back.

"Oh, Russ!" cried Rose.

"Oh, Rose!" stammered her brother.

The scream came from so near that it seemed worse than before. And now Russ was shaken in his proclaimed opinion. It did not seem that any woman, no matter how great her distress might be, could make such a terrible sound.

"I guess we'd better go back," confessed Russ after a minute.

Rose was eager to do so. They turned and, hand in hand, began to run. And in their haste they somehow missed the path they had been following. Or else, it had not been a path at all.

At least, after running so far that they should have reached the burned cabin they came out into quite a different clearing! They both knew that they had missed the way, for in this clearing stood a little cabin with a pitched roof that neither of the Bunker children had ever seen before. Nor was the wide brook in sight.

"I guess we've got turned around," Russ said, trying to hide his disappointment and fear from his sister. "We've got to go back, Rose."

"Do you know which is back?" she asked.

"We've got to hunt for that old path."

"Don't you leave me, Russ Bunker!" cried Rose, as her brother started away.

And just then both of them saw the tawny, long tailed, slinking beast in the edge of the thicket.

"Oh! It's a bear!" shrieked Rose.

"Bears don't look like that," gasped Russ, staring at the great, glowing eyes of the animal. "It looks more like a cat."

"There never was a cat as big as that, Russ Bunker, and you know it!"

"Come on, Rose," said her brother promptly. "We'll go into that house and shut the door. It can't get us then, whatever it is."

In a moment the two children had dashed into the cabin and pulled to the swinging door. The door had a lock on the outside, and when Russ banged the door shut he heard the lock snap.

"Now it can't get at us!" cried Russ with some satisfaction. "We're safe."

"But—but I don't like this old house, Russ Bunker," complained Rose. "There is no window."

"All the better," was the brave reply. "That cat can't get at us."

Then the screech sounded again and the boy and girl clung together while the sound echoed through the lonesome timber.

"It's that thing that makes the noise," whispered Rose. "Oh, Russ! if Daddy Bunker doesn't come after us, maybe it will tear the house down."

"It can't," declared Russ.

"How do you know it can't?"

"Why, cats—even big ones—don't tear houses to pieces, Rose. You know they don't! We'll be safe as long as we stay in this place."

"But how long shall we have to stay here?"

"Until that thing goes away," said Russ confidently.

"And maybe it won't go away at all. We'll have to stay here till the folks come to find us, Russ. I—I want—my mo-mother!"

"Now, Rose Bunker, don't be a baby!" said her brother. "That thing can't get at us in here——"

Just then something thumped heavily on the roof of the hut. Russ could not say another word. They heard the great claws of the big cat scratching at the roof boards.

Rose screamed again and this time her brother's voice joined with hers in a hopeless cry for help.



CHAPTER XXIV

AN EXCITING TIME

Russ and Rose Bunker had slipped out of the house on the hill without saying a word to anybody as to where they were going. Since coming to the Meiggs Plantation there had been a certain amount of laxness in regard to what the children did. They had a freedom that Mother Bunker never allowed when they were at home.

Because the Armatage children went and came as they wished, the little Bunkers began to do likewise. The house was so big, too, that the children might be playing a long way from the room in which their mother and father and Mr. Frane Armatage and his wife sat.

The servants who were supposed to keep some watch upon the children were now all in the quarters. Servants in the South seldom sleep in "the big house." And perhaps Mother Bunker forgot this fact.

At any rate, when she came to look for her brood late in the evening she found the four little ones fast asleep in their beds, as she had expected them to be. But Rose was not with Phillis and Alice Armatage, and Russ's bed was likewise empty.

"Where are those children?" Mother Bunker demanded of Daddy, when she had run downstairs again. "Do you know? They should be in bed."

"They were in the library earlier in the evening," Mrs. Armatage said. "I think they were writing again."

"Writing?" repeated Mother Bunker. "Making more of those signs to set up at the burned house?"

Mr. Armatage chuckled. "Those won't do much good. Sneezer never could read writing."

"Let us ask Mammy. Rose and Russ may be with her," suggested Mrs. Armatage.

Upstairs went the two ladies and into Mammy June's room. There was a night light burning there, but nobody was with the old woman.

"Lawsy me!" exclaimed the old nurse when Mrs. Bunker asked her. "I ain't seen them childern since I had my supper. No'm. They ain't been here."

The house was searched from cellar to garret by the two gentlemen. Meanwhile the anxious mother and her hostess went to the library. Russ had left there some spoiled sheets of cardboard with some of the letters printed on them. It was easy to see the attempt he and Rose had made to print plainly a notice to Sneezer, Mammy June's absent son, telling him that his mother was at the big house.

"The dear things!" said Mrs. Armatage. "Your boy and girl are very kind, Mrs. Bunker. They want to relieve Mammy's trouble."

"They have gone down there to-night to stick up those signs!" cried Mrs. Bunker, inspired by a new thought.

"Well, I reckon nothing will hurt 'em," said her friend soothingly. "I'll tell Mr. Armatage and he will go down there and get them."

This idea impressed both the men when they came back from their unsuccessful search of the house.

The two men walked briskly along the trail to the burned cabin. The stars gave them light enough to see all about the clearing when they arrived. Not a sign of Russ or Rose did they find.

"Do you suppose they went home some other way?" asked Daddy Bunker.

"I don't know. I hope they haven't wandered into the thicket."

As Mr. Armatage spoke both men heard the terrible scream that had first startled Russ and Rose. Mr. Bunker fairly jumped.

"That can't be the children!" he ejaculated.

The way his companion looked at him told the children's father a good deal. Mr. Bunker seized Mr. Armatage's arm.

"Tell me! What is it?" he asked.

"Something that hasn't been heard around here for years," said the planter, his voice trembling a little. "It's the cry of a panther."

Mr. Bunker, although he was practically a city man, had hunted a good deal and had been in the wilder parts of the country very often. He knew how terribly dangerous a panther might be on occasion; but he likewise knew that ordinarily they would not attack human beings. Two little children lost in the woods in which a panther was roaming up and down was, however, a fearful thing.

"Get a gun and the hands!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "If Russ and Rose have mistaken the way home, and are in that timber, they may be in peril."

Mr. Armatage started off on a run for the quarters. He knew that some of his hands had guns, and the quarters were nearer than the big house.

Daddy Bunker, although he was unarmed, started directly into the woods, trying to mark his course by the repeated screams of the hungry panther. He might have been lost himself, for there was not much light to mark the way; but Daddy Bunker could judge the situation of the screaming panther much better than Russ and Rose had been able to.

He hurried on, gripping a good-sized club that he had found. But, of course, he knew better than to attack a panther with a club. He might throw the stick at the animal, however, and frighten it away.

Russ and Rose had gone a long way into the thicket. The panther did not scream often. So Daddy Bunker did not make much progress in the right direction. By and by he had to stop and wait for help, or for the panther to scream again.

He heard finally many voices at the edge of the thicket. Then he began to see the blaze of torches. A party of colored people—men and boys—with torches and guns, followed Mr. Armatage.

In addition, all the hunting dogs on the plantation were scouring the timber. Bobo, the big hound, was at the head of this pack. He struck the scent of the panther at last, and his long and mournful howl was almost as awe-inspiring as the cry of the panther.

"Come on, Bunker!" shouted Mr. Armatage, when the party had overtaken the Northern man. "The dogs are the best leaders. Bobo has got a scent for any kind of trail. Come on!"

The negroes shouted and swung their torches. Perhaps they made so much noise and had so many lights because they somewhat feared the "ha'nts" that many of them talked about and believed in.

But the two white men were not thinking of ghosts. They feared what might have happened to the two children if they had met the panther.

Just at this time, too, Russ and Rose were not thinking of ghosts. The panther was not at all ghostly. He had four great paws, each armed with claws that seemed quite capable of tearing to pieces the roof boards of the cabin the children had taken refuge in.

"He'll get to us! He will! He will!" Rose cried over and over.

"No, he won't," said her brother, but his voice trembled. "I—I don't see how he can."

"Let's run out again while he's on the roof, and run home," said Rose.

"We don't know the way home," objected her brother.

"We can find it. I don't want to be shut up here with that cat."

"It's not so bad. He hasn't got in yet."

But Rose ran to the door, and then she made another discovery that added to her fright. The door could not be opened! The spring lock on the outside had snapped and there was no way of springing the bolt from inside the shack.

"Now see what we've done!" she wailed. "Russ Bunker! we are shut into the place, and can't get out, and that thing will come down and claw us all to pieces."

With this Rose cast herself upon the ground and could not be comforted. In fact, at the moment, Russ could not think of a word to say that would comfort his sister. He was just as much frightened as Rose was.



CHAPTER XXV

THAT PIGEON WING

Greatly as the two little Bunkers were alarmed, and as much as their father and Mr. Armatage worried about their safety, they really were not so very badly off. Not only were the roof boards of the hut in which Russ and Rose had taken refuge sound, but soon the panther stopped clawing at the boards.

It heard the crowd of men coming and the baying of the hounds. It stood up, stretched its neck as it listened, snarled a defiance at Bobo and his mates, and then leaped into the nearest tree and so away, from tree to tree, into the deeper fastnesses of the wood.

The dogs might follow the scent of the panther on the ground to the clearing where the hut stood; but beyond that place they could not follow, for the wary cat had left no trail upon the ground.

At first, when the dogs came baying to the spot, Russ and Rose were even more frightened than before. The dogs' voices sounded very savage. But soon Bobo smelled the children out and leaped, whining, against the door of the cabin. He was doing that when Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage and the negroes reached the clearing.

"The creature is in that hut," said Daddy Bunker.

"Not much!" returned his friend. "Bobo would not make those sounds if it was a panther. Mr. Panther has beat it through the trees. It is something else in the charcoal burner's hut. Come on!"

He strode over to the door, snapped back the lock, and threw the door open. The torchlight flooded the interior of the place and revealed Russ and Rose Bunker, still fearful, clinging to each other as they crouched in a corner of the hut.

"Well!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "Of all the children that ever were born, you two manage to get into the greatest adventures! What are you doing here?"

"A big cat chased us in here, Daddy," said Russ.

"And he tried to get at us through the roof," added Rose.

Daddy Bunker and Mr. Armatage looked at each other pretty seriously.

"We didn't get here a minute too soon," said the planter.

"I believe you," returned Mr. Bunker gravely. "This might have been a very serious affair."

But in the morning, after Russ and Rose were refreshed by sleep and had told the particulars of their adventure at the breakfast table, the youngsters really took pride in what had happened to them. The smaller children looked upon Russ and Rose as being very wonderful.

"What would you have done, Russ, if that big cat had got into the house with you and Rose?" Vi asked.

"But he didn't," was the boy's reply.

"Well, if he had what would you have done?"

But that proved to be another question that Vi Bunker never got answered. This was so often the case!

"So you thought it was a ghost at first, and then it turned out to be a big cat," Laddie said to Rose. "I think I could make up a riddle about that."

"All right," said Rose, with a sigh. "You can make up all the riddles you want to about it. Making a riddle about a panther is lots better than being chased by one."

Laddie, however, did not make the riddle. In fact he forgot all about it in the excitement of what directly followed the rescue of Russ and Rose from the wild animal. Mr. Bunker felt so happy about the recovery of the two children that he determined to do something nice for the colored people who had so enthusiastically aided in hunting for Russ and Rose.

"Let 'em have another big dance and dinner, such as they had Christmas eve," Mr. Bunker suggested to the planter. "I'll pay the bill."

"Just as you say, Charley," agreed Mr. Armatage. "That will please 'em all about as much as anything you could think of. I'll get some kind of music for them to dance by, and we'll all go down and watch 'em. Your young ones certainly do like dancing."

This was true. And especially was Russ Bunker anxious to learn to dance as some of the colored boys did. He was constantly practising the funny pigeon wing that he had seen Sam do in Aunt Jo's kitchen, in Boston. But the white boy could not get it just right.

"Never mind, Russ," Laddie said approvingly, "you do it better and better all the time. I guess you can do it by and by—three or four years from now, maybe." But three or four years seemed a long time to Russ.

When they went down to the quarters the evening of the party Russ determined to try to dance as well as Frane, Junior, and the negro boys.

Mammy June was much better now, and she was up and about. To please her Mr. Armatage had a phaeton brought around and the old nurse was driven to the scene of the celebration. Mun Bun and Margy rode in the phaeton with Mammy June and were very proud of this particular honor.

The old nurse was loved by everybody on the plantation, both white and black. Mother Bunker said that Mammy held "quite a levee" at the quarters, sitting in state in her phaeton where she could see all that went on.

The dinner was what the negroes called a barbecue. The six little Bunkers had never seen such a feast before, for this that their father gave them was even more elaborate than the dinner the planter had given his hands at Christmas.

There was a great fire in a pit, and over this fire a whole pig was roasted on a spit, and poultry, and 'possums that the boys had killed, and rabbits. There were sweet potatoes, of course. How the little Northerners liked them! The white children had a table to themselves and ate as heartily as their colored friends.

Then a place was cleared for the dancing. Mammy June's phaeton was drawn to the edge of this dance floor. The music struck up, and there was a general rush for partners.

After a while the dancers got more excited, and many of them danced alone, "showing off," Frane, Junior, said. They did have the funniest steps! Russ Bunker was highly delighted with this kind of dancing.

"Now let me! Let me dance!" he cried, starting out from his seat near Mammy June. "A boy showed me in Boston how to cut a pigeon wing. I guess I can do it now."

"You can't cut no pigeon wing, w'ite boy," said 'Lias, Mammy's grandson.

"I can try," said Russ bravely, and he danced with much vigor for several minutes.

"Oh, my, he done cut Sneezer's pigeon wing!" cried one of the darkies presently.

"What's dat? Cut Sneezer's pigeon wing?" cried Mammy June, sitting up to watch Russ more closely.

"Dat's jest what he's doin'."

Russ continued to dance, and did his best to imitate the colored boy at Aunt Jo's house. He was hard at it when Mammy June, with her eyes almost popping out of her head, cried:

"For de lan's sake, boy, come here! I want to ask you sumpin."

Russ was in the midst of cutting the pigeon wing again, and this time he was fortunate enough to imitate Sam in almost every particular. Then he stopped and walked over to the old colored woman's side.

"How come you try to do it that way, Russ Bunker?" asked Mammy June as Russ approached the phaeton. "I ain't never seen you do that before. Who showed you?"

"Sam. The boy in Boston. He said he was called after his Uncle Sam. He came from down South here, you know, Mammy."

"Was he a cullud boy?" demanded the old woman earnestly.

"Of course he was. Or he couldn't dance this way," and Russ tried to cut the pigeon wing again.

"Wait! Wait!" gasped the old woman. "Tell me mo' about that boy who showed you. You ain't got it right. But dat's the way my Sneezer done it. Only he knows just how."

"Why, Mammy June!" cried Rose, "you don't suppose that Sam can dance just like your Sneezer?"

The old nurse was wiping the tears from her cheeks. Her voice was much choked with emotion as well. Mrs. Bunker came over to see what the matter was.

"Yo' please tell me, Ma'am, all about dat boy dese children say was in Boston? Please, Ma'am! Ain't nobody know how to dance dat way but Sneezer. And he didn't like his name, Ebenezer Caliper Spotiswood Meiggs. No'm, he didn't like it at all, 'cause we-all shortened it to Sneezer.

"He had an Uncle Sam, too. My brudder. Lives in Birmingham. Sneezer always said he wisht he'd been born wid a name like Uncle Sam."

"Perhaps it is the same boy," Mother Bunker said kindly. "Tell me just how Ebenezer looks, Mammy June. Then I can be sure."

From the way Mammy described her youngest son, even the children recognized him as Sam the chore boy at Aunt Jo's in Boston. Mun Bun and Margy, when the matter was quite settled that Sam was Sneezer, began to take great pride in the fact that it was their bright eyes that had first spied the colored boy walking in the snow and had been the first to invite him into Aunt Jo's house.

"He will be there when we go to Boston again, Mammy June," Rose said, warmly. "And Daddy and Mother will send him home to you. I guess he'll be glad to come. Only, maybe you'd better stop calling him Sneezer. He likes Sam best."

"Sure enough, honey," cried Mammy June, "I'll call him anything he likes 'long as he comes home and stays home with me. Yes, indeedy! I'd call him Julius Caesar Mark Antony Meiggs, if he wants I should."

"But maybe," said Russ thoughtfully, "he wouldn't like that name any better than the other. I know I shouldn't."

In a short time it was a settled matter that Mammy June's lost boy would return. For she could tell Mrs. Bunker so many things about the absent one that there was not a shadow of a doubt that the Sam working for Aunt Jo would prove to be Mammy June's boy.

The holidays on the Meiggs Plantation ended, therefore, all the more pleasantly because of this discovery. The plantation was a fine place to be on, so the six little Bunkers thought. But when Daddy Bunker announced that his business with his old friend, the planter, was satisfactorily completed, the children were not sorry to think of returning North.

"This doesn't seem like winter at all down here," said Russ. "We want to slide downhill, and roll snowballs, and make snowmen."

"And it is nice to go sleigh riding," Rose added. "They never can do that on the Meiggs Plantation."

"But you can make riddles here," put in Laddie.

Vi might have added that she could ask questions anywhere!

As for Margy and Mun Bun, they were contented to go anywhere that Mother Bunker and Daddy went. Something exciting was always happening to all of the six little Bunkers. But we will let you guess, with Russ and Rose and Vi and Laddie and Margy and Mun Bun, where the next exciting adventures of the half dozen youngsters from Pineville will take place.

Then came the time to leave the plantation. The children had many little keepsakes to take home with them and they promised to send other keepsakes to the Armatage children as soon as they got back to Pineville.

"It's been just the nicest outing that ever could be!" said Rose, when the good-byes were being spoken. "I'm sure I'll never forget this lovely place."

"I's coming back some day if they want me," put in Mun Bun quickly. And at this everybody smiled.

Then all climbed into the automobile which was to take them to the railroad station. There was a honk of the horn, and amid the waving of hands and a hearty cheer, the six little Bunkers and their parents started on their journey for home.



SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of "The Bobbsey Twins Books," "The Bunny Brown Series," "The Make-Believe Series," Etc.

* * * * *

Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding

* * * * *

Delightful stories for little boys and girls which sprung into immediate popularity. To know the six little Bunkers is to take them at once to your heart, they are so intensely human, so full of fun and cute sayings. Each story has a little plot of its own—one that can be easily followed—and all are written in Miss Hope's most entertaining manner. Clean, wholesome volumes which ought to be on the bookshelf of every child in the land.

SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S

* * * * *

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK



THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of the popular "Bobbsey Twin Books" and "Bunny Brown" Series.

* * * * * UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.

* * * * *

These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life. They are clean and wholesome, free from sensationalism, and absorbing from the first chapter to the last.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE Or Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE Or Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR Or The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP Or Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA Or Wintering in the Sunny South.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW Or The Box that Was Found in the Sand.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND Or A Cave and What it Contained.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE Or Doing Their Bit for Uncle Sam.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE Or Doing Their Best for the Soldiers.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT Or A Wreck and A Rescue.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE Or The Hermit of Moonlight Falls.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE Or The Girl Miner of Gold Run.

* * * * *

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK



THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS

For Little Men and Women

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of "The Bunny Brown" Series, Etc.

* * * * *

12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING

* * * * *

Copyright publications which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Books that charm the hearts of the little ones and of which they never tire.

THE BOBBSEY TWINS THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST

* * * * *

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York



THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books

Wrapper and text illustrations drawn by FLORENCE ENGLAND NOSWORTHY

* * * * *

12mo. DURABLY BOUND. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING

* * * * *

These stories by the author of the "Bobbsey Twins" Books are eagerly welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age. Their eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of inquisitive little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trustful sister Sue.

Bunny was a lively little boy, very inquisitive. When he did anything, Sue followed his leadership. They had many adventures, some comical in the extreme.

BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE

* * * * *

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK



THE TOM SWIFT SERIES

By VICTOR APPLETON

* * * * *

UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.

* * * * *

These spirited tales, convey in a realistic way, the wonderful advances in land and sea locomotion. Stories like these are impressed upon the memory and their reading is productive only of good.

TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE

* * * * *

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK



THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS SERIES

BY VICTOR APPLETON

* * * * *

UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. INDIVIDUAL COLORED WRAPPERS.

* * * * *

Moving pictures and photo plays are famous the world over, and in this line of books the reader is given a full description of how the films are made—the scenes of little dramas, indoors and out, trick pictures to satisfy the curious, soul-stirring pictures of city affairs, life in the Wild West, among the cowboys and Indians, thrilling rescues along the seacoast, the daring of picture hunters in the jungle among savage beasts, and the great risks run in picturing conditions in a land of earthquakes. The volumes teem with adventures and will be found interesting from first chapter to last.

THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE WEST THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE COAST THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE JUNGLE THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN EARTHQUAKE LAND THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AND THE FLOOD THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS UNDER THE SEA THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE WAR FRONT THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON FRENCH BATTLEFIELDS MOVING PICTURE BOYS' FIRST SHOWHOUSE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT SEASIDE PARK MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON BROADWAY THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' OUTDOOR EXHIBITION THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS' NEW IDEA

* * * * *

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

Transcriber's notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 9: "Gooodness" changed to "Goodness". (Goodness! it's cold)

Page 31: "begger" changed to "beggar". (allowing a beggar)

Page 67: "swin" changed to "swim". (could not swim)

Page 150: "fire-cracker" changed to "firecracker" to conform to rest of text. (It's firecrackers.)

One instance each of "white-washed" and "whitewashed" appears in the original and was retained.

Christmas Eve is capitalised once and lowercased once. This was retained.

THE END