“Bother such sport as that!” snorted Greg.

“Humph!  It may turn out to be the liveliest sport of all,” declared Dick dryly.  “Certainly if that fellow turns up it will take two of us to handle him with comfort.  He’s a tough customer.”

“Dan, you always were an artist with a shovel,” suggested Darry insinuatingly.  “Suppose you get out the spade and see what sort of perch bait you can turn up in this neighborhood.”

“Me?” drawled Dalzell protestingly.  “Shucks!  I’m no good at finding bait.  Never was.”

“Get the spade and try,” ordered Darry.  “If you don’t find some bait we’ll have to put off fishing until some other day.”

That brought Dan to terms.  He shouldered a spade, picked up an empty vegetable can and started away, while Dave began to sort tackle and to rig on hooks suitable for catching perch.  Tom and Harry started in to unpack supplies from a pair of six-quart pails that they needed for the morning’s work.

“Say, hear that, fellows!” demanded Tom, straightening up suddenly.

From the distance to the northward came a dull rumbling sound.

“Thunder?” suggested Danny Grin, glancing wonderingly up at the clear sky.

“If there’s a storm coming it will upset a day’s berrying,” Reade announced.

“Fellows,” Dick broke in, “it’s a rumbling, yet it doesn’t sound
just like thunder, either.   It sounds more like-----”

“Cavalry on a gallop,” suggested Greg.

“Just what it does sound a lot like,” Prescott nodded.  Then he dropped to the ground, holding one ear close to the earth.

“And, whatever the rumble may be,” Prescott went on, “it travels along the ground.  Just get your ears down, fellows.”

“It’s something big, and it’s moving this way,” cried Dave.

“It can’t be cavalry,” Tom argued.  “There are no manoeuvres on; there is no state camp ever held in this part of the state, either.  What do you-----”

But Dick Prescott was up on his feet by this time.  Furthermore, he was running.  He stopped at the base of the trunk of the first tall tree.  Up he went with much of the speed of a squirrel.  Higher and higher he made his way among the branches.

“Say, be careful there, Dick!” called Tom Reade, warningly.   “If
you get a tumble-----”

“I’m not a booby, I hope,” Dick called down, as he went to still loftier heights.  He was now among the slender uppermost branches, where a boy would need to be a fine climber in order to make such swift progress.  Even Dick Prescott might readily enough snap a branch now, and come tumbling to earth.

“Stop!” warned Tom.  “If you don’t you’ll butt your head into a cloud, the first thing you know.”

“Can you see anything?” called Danny Grin.

“I see quite a cloud of dust to the northward.”

“How far off?” asked Dave.

“About a mile, I should say, and it’s headed this way, coming closer every minute.”