"I tell you I'd like to catch that lion," said Jimmy Emery, smacking his lips over the prospect; "but I don't see how it can be done."
"Why couldn't we coax him into the school-house this afternoon after all the girls and boys are gone?" asked Joe Hunt; "it's so low and flat he would take it for his den, that is, if we kill a calf and lay it inside the door."
"But Mr. McCurtis stays an hour after school to set copies," said Fred Sheldon.
Joe Hunt scratched his arms, which still felt the sting of the blows for his failure in his lessons, and said:
"That's one reason why I am so anxious to get the lion in there."
"Well, younkers, I s'pose you're going to earn both of them rewards?"
It was Bud Heyland who uttered these words, as he halted among the boys, who were rather shy of him.
Bud had his trousers tucked in the top of his boots, his sombrero and blue shirt on, his rank brier-wood pipe in his mouth, and the whip, whose lash looked like a long, coiling black snake, in his hand.
His face was red as usual, with blotches on his nose and cheeks, such as must have been caused by dissipation. He was ugly by nature, and had the neighborhood been given the choice between having him and the lion as a pest it may be safely said that Bud would not have been the choice of all.
"I don't think there's much chance for us," said Fred Sheldon, quietly edging away from the bully; "for I don't see how we are to catch and hold him."