It was noticed that neither Alonzo Crane nor Dit Hennesy uttered a single word. Apparently they knew Nat would not act in this way simply after having had a silly dream. Both of them had been in his company that afternoon in the woods of Bass Island when Nat claimed to have seen the unknown monster that was haunting their camp.
“Say, what d’you take me for, anyway?” demanded Nat, as he crawled out of the tangled folds of his blanket, and looked defiantly around him. “I tell you I’ve seen a terror of the woods all right, and I only hope never to set eyes on the same again. If I had my way I’d start for Cliffwood to-morrow. I didn’t come up here to have Old Nick, or something just as bad, play leap-frog over me, I want you to know.”
Some of the boys could be heard muttering to themselves. Plainly these strange words on the part of Nat gave them cause for worry.
“Tell us all about it, Nat, won’t you?” pleaded Alonzo, who was looking rather white under the eyes, Dick noticed—a plain indication of a craven spirit, boys are always ready to avow.
“Oh! I’m willing to tell all I know,” replied the other, readily enough, “even if ’tisn’t much. When a feller gets waked up all of a sudden like, and sees such a thing hoppin’ right over him, he’s not agoin’ to stop and take too long a look. I own up I ducked under the blanket right away, and started rollin’ around, meanin’, of course, to keep it from grabbin’ hold of me.”
“What was it like, Nat?” asked Dick, while Mr. Holwell stood by an interested listener, a puzzled expression on his kindly face. Mr. Bartlett and the physical director were also on hand, while a black face thrust out from the cook tent told that Sunny Jim was listening.
“Oh! say, when I try to tell you I just seem to get all balled up,” complained the boy who had been the cause of the midnight alarm.
“But you can give us some idea,” persisted Dick. “Already you’ve gone and compared it to Satan himself. Did he have a forked tail and cloven hoofs?”
Nat failed to catch the satire in Dick’s question and voice.
“I shouldn’t be ’tall surprised if it did,” he calmly replied, “though I don’t want to exactly say I seen all that. But I give you my honest word, cross my heart, if it didn’t look like it must a come from down below. Ugh! but it certainly gimme a bad feelin’.”