"I suppose you think you've got the laugh on me," grunted Ham Spink.
He was about as angry and helpless as he could be.
"Oh, we are weeping for you, Ham!" said Shep. "Come on, fellows!" and he started off and soon his friends followed him.
"Oh, but he does smell prime!" said Whopper, when they were out of bearing. "He'd down a cologne factory in one round!"
"It is certainly awful!" answered Snap. "It was too bad to spoil that nice suit of clothes."
"I am thankful that we didn't meet the skunk," came from Giant.
"I remember meeting a skunk years ago—-when I was a little boy," said Shep. "I thought it was a cat and wanted to pick it up. I think the skunk was getting ready for me when our dog came along and scared the thing away."
Ham Spink was indeed in a sorry plight. The smell was so bad that none of his friends wanted to go near him, and they begged him to keep his distance. In anger he stalked back to his camp, and there took off the almost ruined suit and buried it in the ground for forty-eight hours, which removed the worst of the odor. Following the advice given, he washed himself in a mud paste, allowing the mud to dry on him at the heat of the fire. Later he washed the mud off and used some heavily scented toilet soap, and thus removed the worst of the odor from his person. But it was a good week before he felt as clean as he had previous to the encounter with the obnoxious animal.
CHAPTER XXV
SURROUNDED BY WOLVES
From Jack Dalton the boys had heard of a beautiful silver deer, said to be roaming the woods on the hills back of Firefly Lake, and Whopper and Giant talked a great deal of going after the game and seeing if they could not lay the deer low.