“I’m just wanting a wildcat,” said Hodge, pushing forward his gun to hold it in readiness. “No close season on wildcats, is there, Merry?”
“Think not,” Merriwell answered. “You go on that side with Browning and Caribou, and I will go on this side. Look out how you shoot. Don’t bring down one of us, instead of a wildcat.”
“Vait! Vait!” came faintly to their ears from Hans, who was struggling through the bushes, having fallen far behind in spite of his frantic haste. “Vai-t-t!”
As a seeming answer came the report of Merriwell’s gun.
One of the cats, scared by the noise of the approaching force, sprang away from the foot of the rock and scampered toward the cover of the trees. Merriwell saw it as it ran and fired.
Instantly there was an ear-splitting howl.
The other cat leaped in the other direction and was shot at by Bart Hodge.
The young Virginian descended from the ledge in anything but a pleasant mood.
“They’re loup-cerviers, and they had me treed nicely,” he said; “but you got one of them, for I heard it kicking in the bushes after it let out that squall. I tumbled into their nest a while ago and that seemed to make them more than ordinarily pugnacious. I came——”
He stopped and stared. At Merriwell’s side he saw John Caribou, and he had been about to announce that he had followed Caribou and seen him row out into the lake. Clearly he had been mistaken.