“Sure,” Jimmie answered. “Shoot the cat!”
“Well, keep your light on him, and wait until I can get where I can see him. The cat frequently resents being wounded.”
“Cripes!” cried Jimmie. “Don’t shoot unless you kill him, for he’ll jump at me then for sure. He’s angry now—hear him pound with his tail? I fired all my loads at him an’ he dodged the bullets.”
“You couldn’t shoot craps!” scorned Frank.
The panther, a great brute made ferocious by the excitement of the fire, and probably scorched a little, could now be heard moving in the branches of a tree not far from that in which Jimmie was perched. In a moment Frank reached a point from which the beast’s face could be seen.
He thought to himself that it looked like a tiger head fastened against a gray cloud with unseen pins. Jimmie’s searchlight brought the evil face, the cruel eyes, the back-sloping ears, the faintly-moving jaws, out into strong relief, as the circle of flame was only large enough to cover the face.
The beast heard Frank moving in the bushes below and turned its head to look, at the same time crouching low, as if to spring.
The first bullet struck him fair in the throat, the second entered the head just above the eyes, the third, coming so rapidly on the others that the three reports seemed to merge into one, entered the body over the heart. The great beast was dead when the body struck the ground.
Jimmie was not long in getting down to Frank’s side and grasping him by the shoulders in a hug which threatened to end in a scuffle.
“Get away!” Frank said. “Suppose there’s another cat here? If there is he’ll get one of us through your foolishness.”