“Now, I got it all fixed, Tavia. You come along with us and see the fun,” said Joe Dale, at luncheon time. “I’m

sorry Dorothy’s gone over to the post-office. She won’t find anything, I’m afraid. Nobody came there this morning

when I was on watch,” he added, as though that was conclusive.

“But she will expect me——”

“No, she won’t. Bob and Ned are going there right after two o’clock, they say, and they’ll take her place.”

“If Bob Niles is going there I don’t want to go,” said Tavia, with a toss of her head. “He’s getting too—

numerous.”

“Come on with us and hunt woodchucks. We got the holes all marked this morning,” said her brother Johnny. “And

Rogue’s got a turtle—a real snappy one, if it is so early in the spring.”

“A turtle?” asked Tavia, wonderingly. “What do you do with a turtle catching woodchucks?”

211 “Oh, you’ll see,” promised Joe. “Come on.”

And Tavia, who was just crazy to run wild in the woods and fields again, as she herself said, was over-ruled and

went with the boys.

They went up into the fields near the Rouse farm. Had they gone by the way of the railroad crossing they might have

passed “the Dump,” as the open lot was called, just about the time Dorothy was talking with Jane Daggett and her

hopeful son.

But Tavia and the boys—all Dorothy’s friends, in fact—were quite unaware of the trouble into which Dorothy’s

impetuosity had gotten her.

The old pasture in which the boys had discovered the woodchuck burrows was full of sheltering clumps of dwarfed

trees, and piles of stone. A woodchuck always has two openings to his home, and unless a watch is set at both holes

no amount of smoking out will enable the hunter to grab Mr. Woodchuck.

“But we got it cinched!” declared Joe Dale, with excitement. “See this old mud turtle?”

The turtle produced was as large as the bottom of a two-quart pail. Tavia, who knew lots about snaring and trapping

small game, was frankly puzzled over the use to which the turtle was to be put.

“Now you’ll see,” giggled her brother. “And we ain’t goin’ to hurt the turtle a mite. Pull out his tail, Joe.

”

212 “Yes, pull out his tail, brother,” urged Roger, dancing around the group that hovered about one of the doors

to Mr. Woodchuck’s den.

“Isn’t a turtle funny?” laughed Tavia. “He sits down, swallows his head, and puts both his hands and feet in his

pockets.”

“Now the string,” said Joe, seriously. He tied a piece of stout cord to the creature’s tail.

“It’ll slip,” objected Johnny.

“No, ’twon’t!”

“Give me the wire, Rogue,” commanded Johnny.

The younger lad produced a piece of thin wire about two feet in length. At one end was a loop, and to this the bit

of stout cord was fastened. Then, to the other end of the wire, Johnny attached a ball of cotton. Joe produced a

bottle of coal oil.

“Whatever are you horrid boys going to do?” demanded Tavia, suddenly.

“Now, we’re not going to hurt the turtle,” explained her brother, calmly. “You needn’t fret. We’re going to

get and bake Mr. Woodchuck. He’s proper game. Mr. Turtle may be scared for a minute, or two, but that’s all. He is

a cold-blooded insect——”

“Insect! hear to him!” burst out Joe Dale, laughing uproariously.

213 “Oh—ah-ugh! I mean reptile,” grunted Johnny.

“That’s as bad as one of the fellows in school,” said Roger. “Teacher asked him what an oyster was, and he told

her it was a fish built like a nut.”

“Goody!” chuckled Tavia. “So it is. But do you think this cold-blooded reptile—which is also a good deal like a

nut—needs warming up, boys?”

“We won’t warm him,” explained Johnny. “Don’t you see we’ve got the wire tied to his tail with a piece of

string? If the wire should get hot he’d never feel it. Now come on, Joe. Pour on the oil. You watching that other

hole, Rogue? We don’t want the old groundhog to fool us.”

“He hasn’t poked his snout out here yet,” declared the smallest boy, with confidence.

But Tavia, who had begun to look worried, suddenly interfered.

“Say! I want to know,” she demanded, “wh............