ys scooped out melons and wore them
for helmets. They were all drabbled with seeds and pulp, and some of the
little fellows were perfectly soaked. None of them cared very much for the
muskmelons.

Somehow Pony would not take any of the melons, although there was nothing
that he liked so much. The fellows seemed to be having an awfully good
time, and yet somehow it looked wrong to Pony. He knew that Bunty Williams
had given up the patch, because Jim Leonard said so, and he knew that the
boys had a right to the melons if Bunty had got done with them; but still
the sight of them there, smashing and gorging, made Pony feel anxious. It
almost made him think that Jim Leonard was better than the rest because he
would not take any of the melons, but stayed off at one side of the patch
near the woods, where Pony stood with him.

He did not say much, and Pony noticed that he kept watching the log cabin
where Bunty Williams lived on the slope of the hill about half a mile off,
and once he heard Jim saying, as if to himself: "No, there isn't any smoke
coming out of the chimbly, and that's a sign there ain't anybody there.
They've all gone to market, I reckon."

It went through Pony that it was strange Jim should care whether Bunty was
at home or not, if Bunty had given up the patch, but he did not say
anything; it often happened so with him about the things he thought
strange.

The fellows did not seem to notice where he was or what he was doing; they
were all whooping and holloing, and now they began to play war with the
watermelon rinds. One of the dogs thought he smelled a ground-squirrel and
began to dig for it, and in about half a minute all the dogs seemed to be
fighting, and the fellows were yelling round them and sicking them on; and
they were all making such a din that Pony could hardly hear himself think,
as his father used to say. But he thought he saw some one come out of
Bunty's cabin, and take down the hill with a dog after him and a hoe in
his hand.

He made Jim Leonard look, and Jim just gave a screech that rose above the
din of the dogs and the other boys, "Bunty's coming, and he's got his
bulldog and his shotgun!" And then he turned and broke through the woods.

All the boys stood still and stared at the hill-side, while the dogs
fought on. The next thing they knew they were floundering among the vines
and over the watermelon cores and shells and breaking for the woods; and
as soon as the dogs found the boys