o dogs were so interested in looking up
and barking at something in it that they paid little attention to the
children. Dix actually stepped on Sue's feet and nearly made her fall
down, while Splash tried to jump over Bunny's head. But the dog did not
quite do it, and fell on Bunny instead, knocking him down.

"Oh, Bunny, are you hurt?" cried Sue.

"No, I guess not--much," answered Bunny slowly. "But I'm all--mussed
up!" and he looked at Splash, who was again rushing toward the boy, not
so much with the idea of playing with him as of getting nearer to the
tree so he could bark at the gray animal.

"Down, Splash! Down!" cried Bunny sharply, and the dogs at once stopped
barking. They had learned to mind the little boy.

Both dogs looked up into the tree and whined. It was just the way dogs
do who are in the habit of chasing cats, and who make this noise,
perhaps to show how sorry they are that they cannot get at the poor
pussies to roll them over in the grass.

But Dix and Splash were not what one could call cat-chasing dogs. True,
they had done it when they were small dogs, just over being puppies,
but, of late years, Splash had given up that fun, and what little the
children had seen of Dix they had not noticed him chasing cats.

"That's what makes me think it isn't a cat they've got up that tree
now," said Bunny, speaking of cat-chasing to his sister.

"But it _looked_ like a cat," said she.

The dogs were quieter now, though they both kept on peering up into the
tree and whining softly, though they did not jump about so hard and try
to leap over Bunny and Sue.

"Oh, I see it!" suddenly exclaimed Sue.

"See what?" asked Bunny.

"The cat--the gray thing--whatever it was ran up the tree," and Sue
pointed her finger to the crotch where one of the lowest big branches
joined the trunk.

"There it is!" went on the little girl. "See it, Bunny? And it is gray.
But it doesn't really _look_ like a cat."

Bunny came and stood beside Sue. He could see the gray animal now, and
as it moved just then, the dogs set up another wild barking.

"Be still!" ordered Bunny. Then, as the dog's cries were less noisy he
said: "Why, Sue, I know what that is. It's a----"

And just then the gray animal fell out of the tree, landing on a pile of
leaves at the very feet of the children.

With barks and howls the two dogs made a dive for it. I do not really
believe they meant to bite it--they just wanted to see what it was. But
Bu