In the meantime he found that Rifle-Eye was getting a fireplace ready, using for the purpose some flat stones which lay conveniently near by. Wilbur, stepping over a tiny rivulet which ran into the creek, noted a couple of stones apparently just suited for the making of a rough fireplace and brought them along. The Ranger looked at them.
"What kind o' stone do you call that?" he asked.
"Granite," said Wilbur immediately.
"An' you took them out o' the water?"
"Yes," answered the boy.
"An' what happens when you build a fire between granite stones?"
"I don't know, Rifle-Eye. What does?"
"They explode sometimes, leastways, when they're wet inside. Don't forget that," he added as he put the stones aside. "Now," he continued, "go down to the spring an' fill this pot with water, an' I'll have a fire goin' an' some grub sizzlin' by the time you get back. The spring is about two hundred feet downstream and about twenty feet above the water. You can't miss it."
Wilbur took the aluminum pot and started for the spring. He had not gone half the distance when he noted a stout crotched stick such as he had been used to getting when he camped out in the middle West for the purpose of hanging the cooking utensils on over the fire. So he picked it up and carried it along with him. Presently the gurgling of water told him that he was nearing the spring, and a moment later he saw the clearing through the trees. But, suddenly, a low snarling met his ears, and he halted dead at the edge of the clearing.
There, before him, on the ground immediately beside the spring, crouched a large wild-cat, the hairy tips of her ears twitching nervously. Under her claws was a rabbit, evidently just caught, into which the wild-cat had just sunk her teeth when the approach of the boy was heard. At first Wilbur could not understand why she had not sprung into the woods with her prey at the first distant twig-snapping which would betoken his approach. But as he looked more closely he saw that this was precisely what the cat had tried to do, but that in the jerk the rabbit had been caught and partly impaled on a tree root that projected above the ground, and for the moment the cat could not budge it.