They scattered a portion of the acorns for bait along the path and up into the pen, to toll the hogs in. The rest they strewed inside the pen, beyond their sliding rail. They could scarcely tear themselves away from the pen; but it was so late they had to hurry home. Next day was Sunday. But Monday morning, by daylight, they were up and went out with their guns, apparently to hunt squirrels. They went, however, straight to their trap. As they approached they thought they heard the hogs grunting in the pen. Willy was sure of it; and they ran as hard as they could. But there were no hogs there. After going every morning and evening for two weeks, there never had been even an acorn missed, so they stopped their visits. Peter and Cole found out about the pen, and then the servants learned of it, and the boys were joked and laughed at unmercifully. "I believe them boys is distracted," said old Balla, in the kitchen; "settin' a pen in them woods for to ketch hogs,--with the gap open! Think hogs goin' stay in pen with gap open--ef any wuz dyah to went in!" "Well, you come out and help us hunt for them," said the boys to the old driver. "Go 'way, boy, I ain' got time foolin' wid you chillern, buildin' pen in swamp. There ain't no hogs in them woods, onless they got in dyah sence las' fall." "You saw 'em, didn't you, Willy?" declared Frank. "Yes, I did." "Go 'way. Don't you know, ef that old sow had been in them woods, the boys would have got her up las' fall--an' ef they hadn't, she'd come up long befo' this?" "Mister Hall ketch you boys puttin' his hogs up in pen, he'll teck you up," said Lucy Ann, in her usual teasing way. This was too much for the boys to stand after all they had done. Uncle Balla must be right. They would have to admit it. The hogs must have belonged to some one else. And their mother was in such desperate straits about meat! Lucy Ann's last shot, about catching Mr. Hall's hogs, took effect; and the boys agreed that they would go out some afternoon and pull the pen down. The next afternoon they took their guns, and started out on a squirrel-hunt. They did not have much luck, however. "Let's go by there, and pull the old pen down," said Frank, as they started homeward from the far side of the woods. "It's out of the way,--let the old thing rip." "We'd better pull it down. If a hog were to be caught there, it wouldn't do." "I wish he would!--but there ain't any hogs going to get caught," growled Willy. "He might starve to death." This suggestion persuaded Willy, who could not bear to have anything suffer. So they sauntered down toward the swamp. As they approached it, a squirrel ran up a tree, and both boys were after it in a second. They were standing, one on each side of the tree, gazing up, trying to get a sight of the little animal among the gray branches, when a sound came to the ears of both of them at the same moment. "What's that?" both asked together. "It's hogs, grunting."