CHAPTER XXII
A FRIEND IN NEED
“We will have to get some more wood.”
“Yes, Ben. It won’t do to let the fire go down, with a lot of all kinds of wild and bloodthirsty animals hanging around.”
“Provided any disturb us.”
“There’s the risk, isn’t there?” demanded Bob. “I saw sure signs of a bear, and a den that looked like a panther’s home. Come on. Two more big armfuls will pull us through.”
After a second day of weary aimless wanderings, the aviator refugees had made a camp under a tree near a little thicket. They had built a fire as night came on, had divided the last bread and meat in the bag, and were trying to forget the disappointments of the day and the discouraging outlook of the morrow.
They were soon busily engaged in gathering up dead pieces of wood at the edge of the thicket. The reflection from the campfire aided them in their work. Ben had a heavy branch with which he poked up pieces of dead wood covered by leaves. These he would throw into a heap at one side, to which his comrade was also adding by his efforts.
Ben was thinking of home and the anxiety of his parents. He tried to banish the blues by whistling a jolly tune. As he started to probe with a stick in a mass of matted leaves, the music halted on his lips, and his eyes became fixed in a terrified stare upon a tree ten feet away.
Poised upon one of its branches, its eyes gleaming with ferocious fire, just ready to spring upon Bob, who, unconscious of his peril was gathering an armful of fuel, was a panther.