inch me." Grant lazily addressed the trout. "I wonder
why it didn't, then, when it was being squashed?"

"I just wish to goodness I had! Only I suppose Aunt Phoebe--"

"I do believe it's got a temper. I wonder, now, if it could be a LIVE
angel?" Grant spoke to the softly swaying poplars.

"Oh, you--there now!" She made a swift little rush at him, nipped his
biceps between a very small thumb and two fingers, and stood back,
breathing quickly and regarding him in a shamed defiance. "I'll show you
whether I'm alive!" she panted vindictively.

"It's alive, and it's a humming-bird. Angels don't pinch." Grant laid a
finger upon his arm and drawled his solution of a trivial mystery.
"It mistook me for a honeysuckle, and gave me a peck to make sure."
He smiled indulgently, and exhaled a long wreath of smoke from his
nostrils. "Dear little humming-birds--so simple and so harmless!"

"And I've promised to be nice to--THAT!" cried Evadna, in bitterness,
and rushed past him to the porch.

Being a house built to shelter a family of boys, and steps being a
superfluity scorned by their agile legs, there was a sheer drop of three
feet to the ground upon that side. Evadna made it in a jump, just as the
boys did, and landed lightly upon her slippered feet.

"I hate you--hate you--HATE YOU!" she cried, her eyes blazing up at his
amused face before she ran off among the trees.

"It sings a sweet little song," he taunted, and his laughter followed
her mockingly as she fled from him into the shadows.

"What's the joke, Good Injun? Tell us, so we can laugh too." Wally
and Jack hurried in from the kitchen and made for the doorway where he
stood.

From under his straight, black brows Grant sent a keen glance into the
shade of the grove, where, an instant before, had flickered the white
of Evadna's dress. The shadows lay there quietly now, undisturbed by so
much as a sleepy bird's fluttering wings.

"I was just thinking of the way I yanked that dog down into old
Wolfbelly's camp," he said, though there was no tangible reason for
lying to them. "Mister!" he added, his eyes still searching the shadows
out there in the grove, "we certainly did go some!"

CHAPTER V. "I DON'T CARE MUCH ABOUT GIRLS"

"There's no use asking the Injuns to go on the warpath," Gene announced
disgustedly, coming out upon the porch where the rest of the boys were
foregathered, waiting for the ringing tattoo upon the iron triangle just
outside the back doo