“That’s all right, Perk; it’d saved the cause, and possibly our lives in the bargain. I’d call it well spent, if you asked me,” Jack told him.
“Say, look at him goin’ licketty split, like the Ole Nick was after him, blazin’, an’ with spurts o’ smoke bustin’ outen his singed hide. He sure enough played outen his class that time, I figger. Mebbe, naow, he’ll cut an’ run next time he meets gentlemen o’ aour stripe.”
The spectacle was so extremely ludicrous to Perk that he writhed and twisted about as if seized with a fit; so, too, did he threaten to burst out into loud laughter only that Jack gave him due warning of what dire consequences would be apt to follow any indiscretion along those lines, which sobered the hilarious one, and brought him back to sanity.
“Kin we climb daown outen this tree naow, partner?” asked Perk, after he could no longer discern any further sign of the badly singed king of the mountain valleys; “I’ll be tickled pink to be able to stretch my legs a bit, seein’ they’re so stiff an’ sore; but it shore was too bad ’bout losin’ my precious snake pizen cure—hopes we aint a goin’ to need it any time, that’s all.”
CHAPTER XVIII
The Circling Buzzards
Jack seemed nothing loth to carry out his chum’s suggestion. Truth to tell he himself felt considerably “cramped” in the lower part of his anatomy—any one who has been compelled to camp amidst the branches of a tree for a period of successive hours, knows the experience is anything but a pleasant one.
So they slipped down, and once more stood on solid ground, with Perk casting suspicious looks in the quarter where last they had glimpsed the fleeing grizzly, with jets of mingled smoke and fire spitting this way and that.
“Huh! here’s hopin’ he’s went for good,” he was saying, meaningly. “Let’s get a move on, partner, an’ vacate these premises pronto—smells too rank fur me jest naow—burnt hair allers did get my goat, ever since that barber coaxed me to have my crop singed—said as haow it’d grow out agin a heap faster if the split ends they was scotched away; but for a whole week afterwards folks used to look at me funny like, an’ move further away. Huh!”
“No hurry at all, buddy,” Jack told him; “that live wire isn’t going to come back this way in a hurry, you can depend on that. Let’s take a look, and make sure nothing has been dropped from our packs, or pockets. On the whole we’ve got a heap to congratulate ourselves on, coming out of such a scrape as well as we did—thanks to that bright thought of yours.”
“Gee! it’s real nice o’ yeou to say that, Jack, ole bean; I’m not sorry we had sech a queer experience; on’y I do begrudge him that real stuff, which is gone for keeps—it wasn’t moonshine, or bootleg either, boy; but worth it’s weight in solid silver—the man says as sold it to me.”