“Mine gootness!” he gasped, sitting up and rubbing his stomach, while he looked excitedly around. “I t’ought, py shimminy, dot somepoty musd hid me, I go town so qvick!”
His eyes fell on the head, and the pleased look came again into his face.
“I pet you, I vill pe bleased mit Merriwell, ven he seen dhis. Dot odder teer got no hornses, und dis haf hornses like a dree sdick up. Id must pe vort more as lefendeen tollar, anyhow!”
After climbing to his feet and assuring himself that he had not sustained any serious injuries or broken bones, he picked up the heavy head and again hurried on, giving utterance to many exclamations of pleasure and delight.
Hans had found the head hanging in the branches of a tree, in a way to keep it out of the reach of carnivorous animals. Had he not been looking for a red squirrel, that had gone flickering through these very branches, he never would have discovered the head, so cleverly was it hidden.
“Dot is a petter head as dot odder vun I got,” he had whispered, wondering dully how it chanced to be there, but not for a moment thinking of poachers.
There were marks on the earth and grass showing where the moose had been skinned and cut up.
“Dose vellers don’d vand der head,” was his final conclusion, “und day chust hang id ub here. Vale, I vill dake id mineselluf, den!”
Then he had fastened his knife to a stick and, after many futile attempts, had succeeded in cutting the string by which the head was suspended from the bough.