Ben called the first time Ann settled herself among the branches. “Sister Ann, do you see anybody coming?”

56 “Pooh!” exclaimed little Helen contemptuously. “That’s Bluebeard! That’s not Robin Hood.”

56

“So it is,” admitted Ben. “What ho, what ho, Maid Marian, doth an enemy draw nigh?”

“I see only one,” Ann answered as a small blue figure that was Fred Bailey crossed the meadow far away, “but he holds at a distance and is seemingly unaware of our hiding place.”

No band is complete without its longbows and staves. Jo quickly filled this lack. He made staves by cutting branches from the straight alder bushes that grew in the brook, peeling them until they were white and shining. They whipped lithely in the air with a clear whistling sound. Jo gathered them up every evening and kept them in the running water of the brook, so that they would not dry out and become brittle.

At first he was puzzled as to how he could make longbows that were strong as well as limber, but soon he thought of the young willows. These he cut and bent into a regular bow-shape without destroying the springiness of the wood. And for bowstrings they used old fishing line.

There was no problem concerning life in the greenwood that Jo could not solve; the making of proper arrows, for instance. He built a small fire after scraping away the dry pine needles and sprinkling the ground with fresh moist earth, and cut some thin lead into strips. These he fastened to the points of the short arrows he had made, so that the57 tips would have weight to carry them straight to the mark. Of course each member of the band took great care not to shoot his fellow members and only one person was allowed to practice at a time, so that the arrows would be easy to locate after they had been shot.

57

At first the band made forays into the wood in pairs, Jo and Ann, then Ben and Helen, so that the glade might not be left unprotected. Under this arrangement Jo was always worried when it was his turn to stay in the shelter. He knew that Ben was unfamiliar with big woods and might get lost. So the band was called for conference and it was decided that the entire band should foray together. Meeting enemies in full strength they stood a better chance of beating them, and before starting out they carefully concealed all the trails to the glade and knew that no enemy could uncover them.

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