“My gootness!” Herman exclaimed. “When we goin' begin 'at beatin'?”
“Here!” Apparently Penrod had solved a weighty problem. “Bring that busted ole kitchen chair, and set the panther up on it. There! THAT'S the ticket! This way, it'll make a mighty good pitcher!” He turned to Sam importantly. “Well, Jim, is the chief and all his beaters here?”
“Yes, Bill; all here,” Sam responded, with an air of loyalty.
“Well, then, I guess we're ready,” said Penrod, in his deepest voice. “Beat, men.”
Herman and Verman were anxious to beat. They set up the loudest uproar of which they were capable. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” they bellowed, flailing the branches with their spears and stamping heavily upon the floor. Sam, carried away by the elan of the performance, was unable to resist joining them. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” he shouted. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” And as the dust rose from the floor to their stamping, the three of them produced such a din and hoo-hooing as could be made by nothing on earth except boys.
“Back, men!” Penrod called, raising his voice to the utmost. “Back for your lives. The PA-A-ANTHER! Now I'm takin' his pitcher. Click, click! Shoot, men; shoot!”
“Bing! Bing!” shouted Sam, levelling his gun at the cage, while Herman and Verman hammered upon it, and Gipsy cursed boys, the world and the day he was born. “Bing! Bing! Bing!”
“You missed him!” screamed Penrod. “Give me that gun!” And snatching it from Sam's unwilling hand, he levelled it at the cage.
“BING!” he roared.
Simultaneously there was the sound of another report; but this was an actual one and may best be symbolized by the statement that it was a whack. The recipient was Herman, and, outrageously surprised and pained, he turned to find himself face to face with a heavily built coloured woman who had recently ascended the stairs and approached the preoccupied hunters from the rear. In her hand was a lath, and, even as Herman turned, it was again wielded, this time upon Verman.