An expression of surprise, quickly followed by one of relief, crossed his mobile face. He choked and coughed a little, then straightway understood the whole affair, took a drink from the birds’ bath-tub under the big syringa bush, and walking straight back to what Tommy called “Waddles’s bone-garden” unearthed a particularly ripe and delicious beef rib and began to gnaw it with relish, his tooth and low spirits having disappeared together. The next day Waddles had a long call from Mr. Wolf, Miss Jule’s old St. Bernard, and after the usual pleasant exchange of sniffs and other greetings the two adjourned to the south side of the orchard wall, which, topping a slope, commanded a wide stretch of country. Here, lying back to back so that eye, ear, and nose might have as wide a range as possible, they proceeded to “watch out” for game. [Illustration] Mr. Wolf, otherwise known as Ben Uncas, and Waddles were the leading members of a curious sort of club that hunted fur, and, as a usual thing, let feathers severely alone. This club now numbered six members of various sizes and breeds, and when the queerly assorted pack started off for a day or night outing, the House People of Dogtown, hearing the babel of cries, said, “Ben Uncas & Co. are on the war-path!” Until this particular season the club had consisted of the St. Bernard, its leader, Waddles, Colin, Tip, and Quick; now Hamlet had been initiated, and was one of the most daring members, especially in the matter of sometimes swimming down even the web-footed muskrats, who sought safety by taking to the water. The animals that the club hunted ranged in size from meadow-mice, moles, chipmunks, muskrats, rabbits, skunks, woodchucks, foxes, coons, and occasionally a rare and wily opossum, while these native animals were liberally punctuated by an assortment of cats. Now this matter of cat hunting by Ben Uncas & Co. has a very dreadful sound, and requires a word of explanation. It had its origin in what some shiftless sort of House People called “their tender feelings” in this way. Any number of people living in the farms and on the country edge of the village kept cats which they fed and housed after a fashion, but when kittens were born, instead of humanely destroying those for which they could not care, they simply shifted the responsibility to the poor kittens, allowing them to grow up as best they might and provide for themselves. Those that did not starve to death soon formed a roving band of feline bandits of every age, sex, and colour, that haunted deserted barns, remote haymows, and even hollow trees in the deep woods, living by preying upon song and game birds, rabbits, and barnyard fowls.