THE ADVENTURERS
Adventure was written on the faces of the little group going along the path to the wood. One had a length of rope wound diagonally across his chest and shoulder. Another had an axe, while a third had a wooden gun. The biggest thing in the wood is the badger, but the biggest thing the boys would see would probably be a vole. One couldn't be as unkind as to say so. The invisible badger was a great bear and even the nervous farm cat, scampering along the side of the hedge, was near to a panther. The boys had been gone about an hour when I went along the path myself and met them in sad procession, white-faced, the bear and the panther for- gotten. What was wrong? They halted. Tearfully the leader of the expedition showed me a brass dart driven through his hand between the second and third fingers. 'He was stabbing a tree when he did it,' said the boy with the rope. 1 drew the dart out while the gang held its breath. Their leader now smiled bravely and went off with his henchmen round him. I called to remind him to get his mother to take him to the doctor, but I somehow doubted that he would.
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