Robert Day passed over her incredulity with a flickering smile.

"People don't have pigs' heads on them!" argued aunt Corinne. "Did
he grunt?"

"And he had a tush stickin' out from his lower jaw," added Robert.

They gazed at each other in silent horror. While this awful
pantomime was going on, the flap of Grandma Padgett's tent was
lifted, and a voice of command, expressing besides astonishment and
alarm, startled their ears with--

"Children!"

Aunt Corinne leaped up and turned at bay, half-expecting to find the
man with the pig's head gnashing at her ear. But what she saw in the
sinking light was a fine old head in a night-cap, staring at them
from the tent. Bobaday and his aunt were so rapid in retiring that
their guardian was unable to make them explain their conduct as fully
as she desired. They slept so long in the morning that the camp was
broken up when Grandma Padgett called them out to breakfast.

[Illustration: THE VIRGINIAN AND HIS CHILDREN.]

Zene wanted the tent of aunt Corinne to stretch over the wagon-hoops.
He had already hitched the horses, restoring the gray and the white to
their former condition of yoke-fellows, and these two rubbed noses
affectionately and had almost as much to whisper to each other as had
Robert and Corinne over their breakfast.