“But it’s silly to think of him knockin’ over a ferocious animal like this here cat,” Giraffe ventured to say. “I never saw a bigger one; and he must have looked fierce enough, I tell you, when he was alive, and could arch up his back, and just growl in a way to make your blood run cold.”
“H’m! s’pose you take a squint up to where the legs are tied to the limb of that tree, Giraffe?” suggested Step Hen, chuckling now with a new sense of humor.
The tall scout craned his long neck, the better to see.
“Jupiter! say, that does look like it, now,” he admitted.
“That’s what it is, sure enough,” avowed Step Hen, “a piece cut from that rope Bumpus carries. You can see it’s braided sash cord, and I’d know that old rope among a thousand. He done it, all right, Bumpus did!”
Giraffe whistled, to indicate the extent of his amazement.
“Who’d ever think he had it in him?” he observed, scratching his head as he stood there, and gazed at the dangling wildcat. “I reckon, now, he must a had the best luck ever, when he just shut his eyes and pulled trigger. This old cat must a wanted to commit suicide. P’raps he just climbed up and looked into the muzzle of Bumpus’ gun.”
“You know better’n that, Giraffe. He must have been some distance away, or else the buckshot wouldn’t have scattered as much as it did. I reckon, now, our fat chum is improving a heap. That was a great shot.”
“Good for you, Step Hen,” Thad broke in to say. “And take another look at the cat, will you? Tell me if you see anything strange about him? I imagine the one Giraffe chased away was a mate to this, and must have been smelling at the body still, when we came up.”
Step Hen uttered a little cry, and then remarked: