“Well,” he snarled (he always talked in a snappish sort of way, as if he were angry about something), “Who’s work is this? Who killed these panthers?”
“We did,” replied Eugene.
“You!” echoed Bayard. He looked at the young hunters in amazement, and then smiled derisively. “You can’t crowd any such story as that down our throats,” said he, at length. “Your father and your uncle Dick killed them, and you’re watching them while they go after a wagon to haul them home. That’s the way the thing stands.”
“You are nice-looking fellows to kill two panthers, are you not?” said Seth, with a sneer. “You would run crying home to your mammas if you saw the track of one.”
“Have it your own way,” replied Walter, good-naturedly. “We killed them without help from anybody, but there’s no law that I know of that compels you to believe it.”
“They’re done for, anyhow,” said Bayard, “and we are saved considerable trouble and hard riding. We’ve been following them for more than an hour—we found their trail down there on the banks of the bayou—and we would have got them if we’d had to follow them clear to New York. If you can prove that you shot them you will take a few dollars out of our pockets.”
Bayard and his men dismounted and proceeded to examine the animals very closely. They looked at their teeth, lifted their paws, guessed at their weight, and finally Bayard drew a hunting-knife from his boot, and after trying the edge on his thumb, walked up to one of the panthers and took hold of his ear.
“Hold on, there!” exclaimed Eugene. “What are you about?”
“What am I about?” repeated Bayard, as though he regarded the question as a very strange one; “I am going to take this animal’s scalp—that’s all. It is worth twenty-five dollars to us. We don’t care for the money, but we have rights here, and we intend to enforce them. You can take the other scalp—it belongs to you, or to whoever killed the panthers—and, as we are not disposed to be mean, we will give you both the skins.”
“Now, let me tell you something,” said Perk. “Keep away from there.”