"Treed! By Jove!" cried Bob, gazing upwards also.
"I reckoned I smelt nigger," said the Shadow, when he had recovered his equanimity; "but if his long legs hadn't banged me on the cocoa-nut, I'd never ha' thought o' lookin' in the tree for the skunk."
"And now comes the job o' gettin' him down," said Mackay. "An' it won't be an easy contract either, judgin' by the way he hangs on to the branches."
"The Shadow and I will soon attend to him," said Jack, with a laugh; and without further ado he commenced to swarm up the small round trunk of the tree.
"Be careful, Jack," warned Mackay. "He may smash your head before you reach him."
"Will he, though?" growled the active climber, already half-way up.
"Strategy's the word, Jack," councilled the Shadow, as he prepared to ascend to his companion's assistance. The lithe tree swayed under its load, then bent until its lower limbs reached the ground.
"We'd better see that our prisoner doesn't make his escape by jumping for it," remarked Bob, and he and Mackay therefore stood at opposite sides of the tree, watching the huddled form with alert eyes. Nearer and nearer Jack writhed his way to the top, and slowly the terrified aboriginal retreated to the farthest limit of the branch on which he rested, until it cracked ominously.
"I guess I've got you now," muttered Jack. "You just wait till I come to you."
But the shivering savage had no such intention; and as Jack approached he began to scream horribly, more after the manner of a wild beast than a human being. Then he broke off bits of the lesser branches and twigs, and showered them down on his implacable enemy.