About ten o'clock the same night Granny Carnes, peeping through a chink in the wall beside her bed, saw a squad of men hurrying afoot down the road from the direction of Ebenezer Church. “Them boys is up to some devil_mint_, Uncle Dick,” she remarked, placidly, to her rheumatic old husband. Uncle Dick laughed, a soft, toothless laugh. “I ain't begrudgin' 'em the fun,” he sighed, turning on his pillow, “but I wisht to the Lord I was along!” The “boys” crossed the creek below Bishop's and entered the shinn-oak prairie on the farther side. “Nance ast mighty particular about the lodge meetin',” observed Newt Pinson to Mr. Cullum, who headed the nocturnal expedition; “she know'd it wa'n't the regular night, an' she suspicioned sompn, Nance did.” “Sissy didn't,” laughed Tobe, complacently. “Sissy is that soft an' innercent an' mild that a suckin' baby could wrop her aroun' its finger--much lessen me!” Bud Hines, in the rear with the others, was in a quiver of excitement. He stumbled along, shifting Sid Northcutt's rifle from one shoulder to the other, and listening open-mouthed to Jack Carter's directions. “You know, Bud,” said that young gentleman, gravely, “it ain't every man that gets a chance to go on a snipe-hunt. And if you've got any grit--” “I've got plenty of it,” interrupted Mr. Hines, vaingloriously. He was, indeed, inwardly--and outwardly--bursting with pride. “I thought they tuk me for a plumb fool,” he kept saying over and over to himself. “They ain't never noticed me before 'cepn to make fun of me; an' all at oncet Mr. Tobe Cullum an' Mr. Newt Pinson ups an' asts me to go on a snipe-hunt, an' even p'oposes to give me the best place in it. An' I've got Mr. Sid's rifle, an' Mr. Jack is tellin' of me how! Lord, I wouldn't of believed it of I wa'n't right here! Won't ma be proud when I write her about it!” “You've got to whistle all the time,” Jack continued, breaking in upon these blissful reflections; “if you don't, they won't come.” “Oh, I'll whistle,” declared Bud, jauntily. Sam Leggett's snigger was dexterously turned into a cough by a punch in his ribs from Mr. Trimble's elbow, and they trudged on in silence until they reached Buck Snort Gully, a deep ravine running from the prairie into a stretch of heavy timber beyond, known as The Rough.