Hans Dunnerwust was rolling over and over on the ground like some speared animal.
“I vos nefer so tead as I peen dis dime,” he was gasping. “I vos pite mineselluf py a snake, and ead my leg mit a vilt cad, und shood mineselluf py a mans, und boison me drough und drough. Vill some vun kilt me do keeb me vrom dying dot snake-pite py?”
Hans was in a terrible state.
“Get up,” Merriwell commanded, “and stop that blubbering. The fellow is gone. You aren’t hurt in the least. Get up, I tell you. You are acting like a baby.”
“I vish I vos a papy,” Hans groaned. “A liddle pit uf a papy dot couldn’t valk indo der voods.”
“Must have been the poacher,” said Hodge, looking longingly toward the point where the man had disappeared. “I wish we could have put hands on him.”
“Perhaps our good friends will not judge us so harshly, now,” suggested Diamond, in the hearing of Parker and one of the deputies.
“Dutchy saw a man all right,” said a deputy.
“No use watching the tree now,” said Parker, regretfully. “He must have heard what we said, and he’ll never come back for that meat.”
“And it was John Caribou!” thought Frank Merriwell.