The tall scout replied that he did, though he looked disappointed, as though this thing of sparing so ferocious a varmint as a wildcat just because some one wanted to catch a few pictures of the beast from time to time, did not appeal very much to his sense of the fitness of things. To Lil Artha the cat was without the pale of the law, because it destroyed all sorts of useful things, from young partridges, rabbits and squirrels to domestic fowls; and he knew there never was a time that any State in the Union ever attempted to bar its hunters from killing every bobcat they could find, the more the merrier.
"Then start your racket!" Elmer told the two who were standing close to the cabin door.
Upon thus getting orders Lil Artha and Toby began to immediately make all the noise they could. They pounded on the door with their fists, together with the butt end of Lil Artha's gun; and the jargon of talk they put up was enough to drive any ordinary cat distracted.
Toby even partly opened the door—just a few inches for he did not want to make the acquaintance of that cat at close quarters—and banged it shut again, meanwhile sending a whoop through the slit. It must have been a brave animal that could have stood out against all that combination of sounds.
Through the small opening Toby had glimpsed something that made him have a chilly sensation along the region of his spine. He had caught sight of the intruder. The cat was an exceptionally large one, and it stood there in the middle of the floor, its hair bristling with fury, and its eyes glaring like yellow balls. No wonder Toby slammed that door so speedily, while his whoop ended in a yell. He almost thought he could hear the heavy thud as the springing cat landed against the door close to his head.
That may have only been his imagination working overtime, and inspired by the one glimpse he had obtained of the fierce beast. He fancied as much himself later on, when in a condition to survey the sequence of events calmly.
While Toby and Lil Artha continued to whoop things up another shrill outcry, this time from George, stilled their clamor.
"Oh! there he is coming out of the chimney, Elmer!" was what George shrieked in his excitement, and afterwards the others laughed when they made mention of the fact that for once George did not seem to doubt the evidence of his eyes, or say that he thought it might be the cat he saw.
"I've got him!" added Uncle Caleb, who doubtless must have managed to work his snapshot camera instantly, though no one heard the "click" of the flying shutter on account of all the other sounds that were arising.
The wildcat had indeed appeared on top of the chimney, having remembered the route it had taken when entering. This alone proved that it was a clever beast, because in the midst of such excitement many another animal would have lost its head, and gone plunging around the interior, trying to push through the window perhaps, and utterly forgetting that there was such a thing as a vent in that slab and hard mud "smoke chaser," as Lil Artha always called the chimney.