“How’s that, Mr. Umpire?” he managed to call, shrilly; and Jack, apparently entering into the spirit of the thing, was heard to bawl lustily back, as though the appeal had been directed to him personally:
“Out at first!”
“Next batter up!” yipped little Amos; which was enough to tell the scouts that the great National game was no mystery to this diminutive cow-puncher, with the face and body of a child, but the head of a grown person.
Then the fun suddenly became fast and furious.
CHAPTER VII.
EVERYBODY BUSY.
“My turn next!” shouted Jack, as a further rushing sound announced the arrival of a second detachment of the escaped wolfish horde.
Ned had his shooting eye at its best when he sent the first leaden pellet toward that leading sprinter. The beast had come with a furious rush, and chanced to pass through a succession of shadowy patches, so that the scout master could not pull the trigger as quickly as he might have wished. The wolf had actually made one wild leap upward after Jimmy’s retreating and plump form before the crash of the gun came.
It happened that Jimmy was looking back over his shoulder at the time, though he knew that must be a foolish thing to do, and cost many a fleeing hunter dear. He would not soon forget the picture that met his eyes, as that gaunt gray pirate of the herd came rising toward him with that splendid bound.
“Why,” Jimmy was heard to say afterwards, when the shock of battle was a thing only of memory, “both his lamps looked like yellow fires, and that red tongue hung from his mouth, while I could see his long white fangs bared to beat the band. Then I heard the bang of Ned’s gun, and that wolf fell back in a heap. When I saw the way he lay crunched up at the foot of my tree, I knew he’d gone and croaked. Gee whiz! but that was a pretty close shave for Jimmy McGraw, let me tell you!”
Jack got his turn and he found it no easy task to knock over a leaping wolf, as glimpsed in the deceptive light. The moon’s rays dazzled his eyes, and when he saw the newcomer flashing through the bars of light and shade Jack pulled the trigger with no assurance that he had held positively on his target.