“Oh! you’d find him on to that game,” Allan went on to say. “Chances are he’d just keep pace with us; and when we started to advance again, we’d see his yellow eyes, and hear his warning growl.”
“Shucks! and do we have to take water from a painter?” demanded Giraffe, giving the dangerous animal the name by which it is generally known among all backwoodsmen and forest rangers.
“I say let’s knock him over. Every one draw a bead on those yellow eyes, and Thad give the word to fire. We’ll pepper him so well he never can know what hit him.”
It was Step Hen who made this war-like proposal; but Thad cautioned his comrades against any such rash action.
“Of course,” he said, “we’d be pretty sure to kill the beast. He couldn’t stand for such a volley at short range. But you understand, such a fierce racket would tell everybody inside of five miles that we were around.”
“Sure!” exclaimed Step Hen, quite crushed. “I forgot those thieves of timber men.”
“But what can we do, then, Thad;” pleaded Giraffe, at his wits’ ends to grapple with the perplexing problem.
As usual it was Thad who saw a way out.
“We’ve just got to scare him off,” he said, in a resolute tone.
“But how can we, when we dassn’t shout even, for fear of telling the fellers around that camp-fire all about us?” Step Hen asked.