Patrick panted up to the hedge and surveyed the empty stretch of meadow with a disappointed grunt. He caught a glimpse of the Hartridge boys as they climbed the fence into the high-road, but they were too far off for recognition. He mopped his brow and lumbered back to examine the body of the guinea fowl. Poor Patrick was neither so slender nor so young as when he entered Mr. Jasper's service twenty years before; as he daily watched Peter's troubles across the hedge, he thanked the saints that the Jasper family contained no boys.

Peter waited till Patrick was well out of sight, when he rose and turned back toward the stables. He met Bobby and Bert Holliday in the lane, armed with a net, a basket, and a generous hunk of raw meat.

"Hello, Pete!" Bobby hailed him cheerily. "We 're going crabbing, Bert and me. If you hear Nora asking after some soup meat that strayed out of the refrigerator, don't let on you met it."