lothes. He looked like what the children
called a tramp, though since they had arrived at the camp they had come
to know that not all persons who wore ragged clothes were tramps. Some
of the farmers and their helpers wore their raggedest garments to work
in the dirt of the fields.

This man might be a farmer. He had long white hair that hung down under
the brim of his black hat, and though he did not have such a nice face
as did the children's father, or their Uncle Tad, still they were not
afraid of him.

"Going after milk, little ones?" asked the old man, and his voice was
not unpleasant.

"No, sir; we've just been," said Bunny.

"Well, I'm afraid you'll spill your milk if you swing your pail that
way," went on the old man, for Bunny was moving the pail to and fro,
with wide swings of his arms.

"It would spill, if there was any in the pail," said Sue.

"But there isn't," added Bunny.

"It's spilled already and we don't know where to get any more,"
explained Sue.

"It wasn't _'zactly_ spilled," Bunny added, for he and Sue always tried
to speak the exact truth. "A dog drank it up."

"While we were chasin' a squirrel," added his sister.

"But I would have driven him away if I'd seen him in time," Bunny
declared positively. "He put his nose right in the pail and licked up
all the milk, and what he didn't eat he spilled and then he ran away."

"And the lady at the farmhouse hasn't any more milk," Sue explained.
"And there isn't any at the camp and----"

"Mother can't make the pudding," finished Bunny.

"Oh dear!" wailed Sue.

"My, you have a lot of troubles!" said the ragged man. "But if you'll
come with me maybe I can help you."

"Where do you want us to come?" asked Bunny, remembering that his mother
had told him never to go anywhere with strangers, and never to let Sue
go, either.

"If you'll come up to my little cabin in the woods I can let you have
some milk," said the ragged man. "I keep a cow, and I have more milk
than I can use or sell. It isn't far. Come with me," and he held out his
hands to the children.

CHAPTER IV

A NOISE AT NIGHT

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were not sure whether or not they should
go with the old man. They remembered what their mother had said to them
about walking off with strangers, and they hung back.

But when Bunny looked at the empty milk pail and remembered that there
was no milk in camp for supper, and none with which his mother could
make the