242 ANTS AND CHILDREN OP THE GARDEN 



kick. Ours made a straight shoot for home and didn't have 

 sense enough to circle around this madhouse. 



FLORENCE. Just like them. 



CECIL. The Acrobats rushed out and tackled our car- 

 riers. Then about 200 of our guards surrounded the door 

 of the Acrobats, piled upon the ants, and let the enemy 

 gas and nip them. 



DOROTHY. Hard luck. 



CECIL. Ours snapped back, but not a single ant was 

 killed on either side. Neither side was fighting to kill, or 

 there would have been dead and crippled ants on the battle 

 field. The Acrobats were just putting up a bluff. "When in 

 dead earnest their jaws never let go. Ours had to attend 

 to them, so they wouldn't stop the trail of the egg-carriers. 



DOROTHY. What about the egg-carriers? 



CECIL. Oh, a good many climbed over the fighting 

 mass or walked through the Acrobat jam and got nipped 

 or shot. After the eggs were all home, the guards all left 

 the Acrobats' nest except about a dozen, and they stood it 

 out until all the grain reached home. 



ALBERT. I suppose our guards piled upon the enemy 

 and took all the punishment to keep the Acrobats busy 

 and thus make the trail safer. I've seen our ants pile up 

 that way in tackling a single big enemy and also when in 

 battle with the eyeless Robbers. 



FLORENCE. I know why our ants went into that cave 

 instead of into their former home on the other side of that 

 telephone pole. A colony of Longlegs were living in that 

 former home, for I saw them moving out the same day ours 

 left the cave. One queen of the Longlegs was twenty 

 times as big as a worker. 



ALBERT. Our ants lived in that cave just thirty-six 



