re quite dark. David and Fly, however, could feel their way about like
little mice, and they soon found themselves outside the door of the
green room, which was devoted to Mrs. Cameron.

"Do you feel this?" said David, putting out his hand and touching Fly.
"This is a long towel; I'm winding part of it round my hand and arm. I
don't want to get hydrophobia, like poor Jane. Now, I'm going to creep
into Mrs. Cameron's room so quietly, that even Scorpion won't wake. I
learned how to do that from the black people in Australia. You may stand
there, Fly, but you won't hear even a pin fall till I come back with
Scorpion."

"If I don't hear, I feel," replied Fly. "My heart does thump so. I'm
just awfully excited. Don't be very long away, Dave."

By this time David had managed to unhasp the door. He pushed it open a
few inches, and then lay flat down on his face and hands. The next
moment he had disappeared into the room, and all was profoundly still.
Fly could hear through the partly open door the gentle and regularly
kept-up sound of a duet of snoring. After three or four minutes the duet
became a solo. Still there was no other sound, not a gasp, not even the
pretense of a bark. More minutes passed by. Had David gone to sleep on
the floor? Was Scorpion dead that he had ceased to snore?

These alarming thoughts had scarcely passed through her mind before
David rejoined her.

"He's wrapped up in this towel," he said. "He's kicking with his hind
legs, but he can't get a squeak out; now come along."

Too careless and happy in the success of their enterprise even to
trouble to shut Mrs. Cameron's door, the two children rushed downstairs
and out of the house. They effected their exit easily by opening the
study window. In a moment or two they were in the shrubbery.

"The hole isn't here," said David. "Somebody might find him here and
bring him back, and that would never do. Do you remember Farmer Long's
six-acre field?"

"Where he keeps the bull?" exclaimed Fly. "You haven't made the hole
there, Dave?"

"Yes, I have, in one corner! It's the best place in all the world, for
not a soul will dare to come near the field while the bull is there. You
needn't be frightened, Fly! He's always taken home at night! He's not
there now. But don't you see how he'll guard Scorpion all day? Even Mrs.
Cameron won't dare to go near the field while the bull is there."

"I see!" responded Fly, in an appreciative voice. "You're a very clever