"Well, I'll look it up to make sure," said Mr. Brown. "It may be that
you are right, and it may be you are wrong. If you are, I'll say to you
now that you'll never get Tom away from me."

"That's right. Don't let him take me!" cried Tom, who seemed very much
afraid. "I don't want any more of his funny needles stuck in me. Let me
stay with you!"

"I will if I can, Tom my boy," said Mr. Brown.

"You'll find you can't keep him away from me," said Mr. Bixby, as he got
up to go. "And I won't hurt him, as he and you folks seem to think. All
I want are my rights."

The two men talked together a little longer, but Tom wanted to hear all
about Sue's having been shut in the trunk, so Bunny and his sister took
turns telling the story once more, while Tom listened eagerly.

"If I'd been there," he cried as Sue finished, "I'd a given that trunk
one kick and busted her clean open, Sue! I wouldn't have waited for no
carpenter."

One look at Tom's big feet seemed to indicate that he could easily have
"busted the trunk clean open."

"But it was better to saw a little door, to make a kennel for Splash,"
said Sue. "Anyhow I wasn't in there very long, and I could breathe a
little."

"Well, be careful about getting into trunks again," said her mother, and
Sue said she would.

The children played in the woods about the camp with Tom after supper,
while Mr. and Mrs. Brown sat off to one side talking earnestly.

"I guess they're talking about you," said Sue. "About your going away,
Tom."

"Well, I'm not going back to Mr. Bixby!" declared the lad.

"And we're not going to let you!" cried Bunny. "If he comes after you
we'll get in a boat and go down the lake and hide in that cave. We'll
take something to eat with us, and some fish lines to catch fish, and
we'll cook 'em over a campfire and we'll live in the big woods forever."

"What'll we do when Winter comes?" asked Sue.

"Oh, then daddy and mother will be back in the city and we can go and
live with them," replied her brother.

Early the next morning, while the children and Tom were having
breakfast, Mr. Brown was seen setting off toward the village.

"Where are you going, Daddy?" cried Sue.

"Can't you take us with you?" asked Bunny.

"No, I'm going off to see some of the townspeople--the authorities--the
head of the poorhouse and others, to find out what right Mr. Bixby has
to Tom."

"Oh, if you're going to help Tom that's all right!" said Sue. "We can
have some