“The Wild Man of the Woods.”
“The what?”
“Well, I wish you had seen him—for I don’t know what else to call him. He stood here behind this tree, and the sight of him turned the horses and frightened them so badly that I was afraid they were going to run away from us.”
“Was it a man?”
“I judge so. He certainly was not an animal, for he was dressed; but he acted like an animal, for when I spoke to him and asked him to get back out of sight, he went up the hill on all-fours like a streak.”
“There’s something been up there, sure enough,” said Eugene. “The fresh dirt on those stones shows that they have but recently been dislodged from their bed.”
“What could it have been?” asked Fred, greatly astonished.
“Ask me something hard,” replied Archie. “If there had been a menagerie along here lately, I should say that one of the gorillas had stolen a suit of the keeper’s clothes and decamped. I have heard of wild men, but I never saw one before, and I have no desire to make his acquaintance. Whoever he is he had better visit some trader pretty soon, or go to hunting furs, for his clothes will not last him much longer.”
“Well, what’s to be done about it?”