CHAPTER X
THE QUEER WAYS OF BUMPUS
"There ain't a thing moving up there, Davy; and I reckon, now, you're only just afooling us," complained Step Hen, after they had stared as hard as anything at the crown of the rocks, which was sharply outlined against the dark heavens.
As the others had met with like poor success in trying to locate the object the scout in question claimed to have seen, they naturally turned on Davy, to demand further explanations.
It could easily be seen, however, from his excited condition, that the boy actually believed what he said.
When Giraffe and Bumpus, and even Allan, urged him to repeat his assertion, he not only did so, but added still more to what he had said before.
"Guess I ought to know what a man's head looks like, hadn't I?" Davy went on to remark, indignantly; "cause I've seen a few in my day. It was there as plain as—as, well, the nose on my face, and you'll say that's right smart in evidence, I know you will, Giraffe. Looky up yonder—see the little peak that seems to stick up above all the rest of the old rock pile? Well, it was alongside that it showed up; and right while I was asaying it, the thing disappeared like smoke. But you believe me, I saw something, and it was a man's head too, no matter if there was a bear or a panther at the other end of the same."
Strange to say no one chuckled at these queer remarks of Davy. They saw that he was in deadly earnest; and the possibility of a strange man spying on them seemed too serious a matter to arouse a laugh.
"Well," said Step Hen, presently, when they had strained their eyes to the utmost without any result whatever, "seems like he saw you at the same time, and lit out in a big hurry."
Giraffe began to recover from the first shock caused by the alarm; and when he was feeling himself the tall scout could nearly always think of something quaint to say.