"Why, I'd just got my gun slewed around, and was ready to fire when he skipped out. I'd liked to have bagged him, I reckon. A grizzly and a panther, all on one trip, would be worth talking about."
"Oh! I don't know that you'd have been so very proud over it," observed Frank.
Bob looked at him as he said this.
"Now, you've got some reason for making such a remark as that," he observed.
"Perhaps I have," answered his chum, nodding wisely.
"Then out with it, Frank, and don't keep me wondering. Besides, I reckon that we'll have another bellow from the old mountain at any time now."
"I guess you didn't notice something queer about that animal, then, Bob?"
"About the panther, you mean?" came the reply. "Well, to tell the honest truth I was knocked all in a heap when I missed hitting him, and didn't have time to bother looking at him close enough to see anything. But what was so funny about him, Frank? Did he have only one eye; or was he three-legged?"
"Oh! nothing of that sort," declared the other; "so far as I know he is in possession of all his members. It was about his neck."
"What about it? Did he have a rubber neck, you mean?" demanded Bob, trying to be a little humorous so as to conceal the fact of his excitement.