"Here's the finest camp site you ever struck in your born days, fellers!" called out Giraffe, as he waved his arm around at the trees that grew close to the edge of the inland sea; and every one of the other five scouts agreed with him.
They had made many camps in the last two years, for they had wandered far from the home town, down in Tennessee, up in Maine, and away out to the Rockies on one memorable occasion; but no better place to spend a night had ever greeted their eyes.
It was soon a bustling scene, with a fire being started, and arrangements made to build a sort of lean-to shelter that would even shed rain in a pinch should a storm come upon them during the night they expected to spend here.
Davy, as usual, was climbing trees, and spying into every hole he could find. When Monkey Jones had a chance to exercise his peculiar gifts like this present opportunity afforded him it was utterly out of the question to hold him in. And so he swung daringly from one limb to another, just for all the world like a squirrel, chattering at times in a way that Giraffe always declared left no doubt in his mind concerning Davy's having descended from the original tree-climbing tribe that sported tails.
There was one very large tree close by, that is, large considering that in this section there were few that could boast a girth of more than a foot; but this one was really what Bumpus called a "whopper;" and Davy sported among the higher branches with all the delight of a child with a new toy; giving the others more than one thrill as he swooped this way and that with reckless abandon.
But suddenly he sent out a shout that caused every fellow to take notice; and Bumpus actually turned pale with apprehension, as he vainly looked around for some sort of weapon with which to defend himself; because he always believed he must be a shining mark for any hungry wild beast, on account of his plumpness.
"Oh!" shouted the boy in the tree, "a panther, fellers, a really true panther!"
CHAPTER II
THAD GOES AFTER THE YELLOW EYES
"He says a panther is up there!" echoed Giraffe, stretching that long neck of his at a fearful rate, in the endeavor to locate the animal in question.