“Aim under the throat, and maybe we’ll reach its heart.”
No more than a dozen feet separated men and beast, when the former simultaneously drew their guns to their shoulders, took a quick but sure aim and fired.
They might as well have buried their bullets in the solid oak beside them, for all the good that was accomplished. That peculiar bark of the brute may have been caused by the sound as well as by the bullet of the gun.
It stood a moment, as if looking steadily at the men, and then resumed its advance.
This was too much, and with a howl of terror the three men scattered and were up the nearest saplings in a twinkling. Here they felt a certain degree of safety, as it was hardly probable that such a constructed creature could “climb a tree.”
“But if he chooses,” replied Teddy, from his perch in reply to this remark, “he kin pull up the tree by its ruts, and crack our heads togither.”
Finding himself master of the situation, the mysterious brute took every thing very quietly. Teddy having fastened the meat to his back, had not removed it upon climbing the tree, so that there was nothing on the ground for it to devour; and the trappers were too veteran hunters to fail to carry their weapons with them.
The camp-fire had just been heaped up with fuel, and was now roaring and crackling furiously. The brute seemed to contemplate it a few minutes in quiet wonderment, and then he sat down upon his haunches like a bear, and looked fixedly at the blaze.
“Look at the spalpeen!” called out Teddy. “Did ye ever see sich impudence. He looks as if he owned the grove and us too.”