"We walked. We started right after breakfast, and we brought our lunch--"
"And we eated-eated it all up," gulped Carrie, the smallest Pendleton.
"And I"m hungry," she added in a mournful tone.
"Aw, don"t be a baby," grumbled her brother. "Of course you"re hungry.
You always are."
"Now, hold on!" urged Neale again. "You walked out to the woods. And from Plane Street? Then I guess you got into the woods about where that old quarry is, didn"t you? That deep hole in the ground where it is all rocks?"
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Margy. "And there"s a railing round it, and daddy told us not to go near, for the railing might break if we leaned on it."
"That"s the place," Neale said. "Now we"re getting to it. And after you got into the wood a way you saw a place where a little house had been burned down-oh! A long time ago?"
"You bet we did!" interrupted Reginald. "But I got some s.m.u.t on my hands just the same," and he displayed two very grimy hands.
"Getting warmer," laughed Neale, yet he was serious the next moment.
"Where did you go after you pa.s.sed that burned cabin?"
"Why, we went after nuts," said Margy soberly.
Luke grinned. "That stumps you, my boy?"
"Not so"s you"d notice it. I know that part of the wood. I know where the only good trees are in that direction. Now, see, Margy: Did you pa.s.s a dead tree with no leaves on it-Oh! A tall tree?"
"Yes, we did!" cried Reginald. "And we found our first nuts under it."
"Aw, shucks!" exploded Sammy Pinkney. "How"d you do that? Nuts under a dead tree? Rats!"
"I think you are the most impolite boy, Sammy," murmured Tess admonishingly.
"But we did," said Margy. "I remember."
"Of course you did," said Neale quickly. "There is a fine big chestnut tree right next to that dead oak. I remember it. When the burrs fall and the nuts scatter, of course some of them fall under the dead tree."
"I got a pocket full, so there!" said Reginald, looking hard at Sammy.
"Aw," muttered Master Pinkney, but was otherwise dumb.
"All right," Neale went on cheerfully. "We are getting on. And where did you go next?"
"Why, we went right on," said Margy. "And we put the nuts we found in a bag that daddy carried. He said maybe we"d get enough to sell some."
"But I want them to eat!" cried Carrie, who was evidently a child with an appet.i.te not easily appeased.
"How long was it before your father climbed the tree?" was Neale"s next question.
"Pretty soon after we got into the real woods," said Margy eagerly.
"There was a fence there, for Daddy got a pole from it and knocked off some of the lowest burrs. Then he climbed up. And a branch broke and-and-Oh! Oh! I know he must be dreadfully hurt, for he wouldn"t speak to us after he fell."
"Come on!" exclaimed Neale, starting off in a hurry. "I know just where that old fence is. All we"ve got to do is to find this end of it and then follow it up until we come to the place."
"The poor man!" whispered Ruth to Luke, as the party set off in the wake of Neale O"Neil and Agnes.
But Agnes said to Neale, in a very broken voice:
"Oh, Neale! Suppose he is dead? What ever shall we do?"
CHAPTER III
THE PENDLETONS" TROUBLES
They came to the fence, as Neale O"Neil had said they would, and then, after following it a little way, Margy shouted aloud and ran ahead.
"Here he is! Here is daddy!" she cried.
Her brother and sister followed closely on her heels, and the Kenway party came afterward, but almost as quickly. They saw a man lying on the ground, and at first he lay so still that the older girls and Luke and Neale did fear that Mr. Pendleton was dead.
Then--
"Oh!" gasped Agnes, with a sudden intake of breath. "His eyes are open."
"He"s alive, all right," said Luke Shepard.
"Oh, Daddy! Daddy!" Margy cried, over and over.
"Margy," the man murmured, "and Carrie, and Reggy--"
"No, Daddy," said the little boy very decidedly, "I"m going to be Shot Pendleton after this. This boy says it"s a better name, and I like it.
"Reggy" sounds as if I ought to have curls."
At another time Mr. Pendleton would very likely have laughed, for he was a man who had tiny, humorous lines about his eyes, and the corners of his mouth more often turned up than down. So Ruth said, at least, and she was very observant.
She went forward with Agnes and stooped over the man on the ground.
Agnes clung to her sister"s hand. The older boys stood back a little.
"Are you hurt?" Ruth Kenway asked softly.
"I believe I am. But I do not know how badly. I cannot move without feeling the most terrible pain in my back. I fell from that limb up there," and he pointed up into the tree under which he lay.
"I bet he"s broken all his bones," stated Sammy Pinkney with much confidence.
"Oh, hush!" cried Agnes pityingly.
"Sammy Pinkney!" exclaimed Tess, "you sound as though you hoped he had."