CHAPTER IX.
JACKER MACK'S report having been entirely favourable, the invasion of Summers' orchard was under taken at dinner-time on the Tuesday following.
The party, which consisted of Dick Haddon, Jacker McKnight, Ted, Billy Peterson, and Gable, started for the paddocks immediately school was out, intending to make Jock Summers compensate them for the loss of a meal.

It was not thought desirable to take Gable, but he insisted, and Gable was exceedingly pig-headed and immovable when in a stubborn mood.

Dick tried to drive him back, but failed; when the others attempted to run away from him the old man trotted after them, bellowing so lustily that the safety of the expedition was endangered; so he was allowed to stand in.
'He'll do to keep nit,' said Dick.
Gable could not run in the event of a surprise and a pursuit, but that mattered little, as it was long since known to be hopeless to attempt to extract evidence from him, and his complicity in matters of this kind was generously overlooked by the people of Waddy.
The expedition was not a success.

Dick planned it and captained it well; but the best laid plans of youth are not less fallible than those of mice and men, and one always runs a great risk in looting an orchard in broad daylight--although it will be admitted, by those readers who were once young enough and human enough to rob orchards, that stealing cherries in the dark is as aggravating and unsatisfactory an undertaking as eating soup with a two-pronged fork.
Dick stationed Gable in a convenient tree, with strict orders to cry 'nit' should anybody come in sight from the black clump of fir-trees surrounding the squatter's house.

Then he led his party over the fence and along thick lines of currant bushes, creeping under their cover to where the beautiful white-heart cherries hung ripening in the sun.