“Now!” said Davy, partly to himself, as he fired his cartridge.
There was a sudden brilliant and dazzling flash, that must have been as fierce as the display of lightning when the bolt hits close at hand. And while those at the fire were schooled to repress their natural alarm, evidently the same could not be said of a looker-on not counted in the bill; for there was a hoarse cry of alarm from the bushes across the way, and the sound of crashing seemed to tell of a precipitate flight.
CHAPTER V.
JIM’S SECRET.
“What was that?” exclaimed Bumpus.
“Oh! Davy just had to let out a whoop!” commented Step Hen.
“Think again, would you,” spoke up Giraffe, who sat there twisting his long neck this way and that, in a comical way, as though seeking to discover the object of the strange outcry; “it came from the other side of the camp from where Davy is.”
“Well,” said the indifferent Step Hen, as if not wanting to be bothered, “then it must have been some animal that was curious enough to prowl around our camp, and got a good scare, free, gratis, for nothing.”
“It was no animal that made that sound, and I leave it to Thad or Allan here,” Bumpus insisted.
Indeed, even the sleepy Step Hen sat up and took notice that the two mentioned, as well as Jim and Eli, were already on their feet, exchanging significant looks. Words were hardly needed to proclaim that they deemed the circumstance as one worthy of investigation.