Caught by his whole-hearted energy, they tried to help; they pushed
behind; they did their best to open a way for his head between the
entwining brambles.
"Don't!" he roared inside. "You'll scratch my eyes out. I shan't see--
anything!" His mouth apparently was full of earth. They watched the
retreating soles of his heavy shooting-boots. Slowly the feet were
dragged in after him. They disappeared from sight. Stumper was gone.
"He'll come back, though," mentioned Judy. The performance had been so
interesting that she almost forgot its object, however. Tim reminded
her. "But he won't find anything in a smelly place like that," he
declared. "I mean," he added, "it can't be a beetle or a grub that
we're--looking for." Yet there was doubt and wonder in his voice.
Stumper, a "man like that," and a soldier, a hunter too, who had done
scouting in an Indian jungle, and met tigers face to face--a chap like
that could hardly disappear on all fours into a clump of bramble
bushes without an excellent reason!
An interval of comparative silence followed, broken only by the faint
murmur of the wind that stirred their humming feathers.
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