JIMMIE FINDS A FATHER.
The goat itself simplified matters for the frightened boy. Its lowered head collided with his rotund form like a battering ram, and the next instant Persimmons described a graceful parabola above the snowfield. As for the goat, it dashed on, but came to a sudden halt as a shot cracked from Jim’s rifle and the bullet sped to its heart.
The boys, however, paid little attention to this at the time. Their minds were concentrated upon poor Persimmons’ predicament. The boy had been hurtled head foremost into a pile of snow and all that was visible of him were his two feet feebly waving in the air.
“Gracious, I hope he’s not badly hurt!” exclaimed Ralph, as he and the rest ran toward the snow bank.
Thanks to the soft snow, the lad was found to be uninjured, and after he had been hauled out, he sat down on a rock with a comically rueful expression on his face, and picked the snow out of his hair and eyes.
“What do you think you are, anyhow,” demanded Harry, “a bullfighter?”
“Ouch, don’t joke about it,” protested the boy. “I thought an express train had hit me. Wh-wh-what became of the buck?”
“There he lies yonder, dead as that rock, but I don’t see where you come in for any credit for killing him.”
“You don’t, eh? Didn’t I attract him this way so you could shoot him?” demanded the other youth indignantly. “I’ll tell you, fellows, shooting the chutes, the loop-the-loop and all of them can take a back seat. For pure unadulterated, blown-in-the-bottle excitement, give me a butt by a mountain goat. It’s like riding in an airship.”
“If you ever take another such ride it may prove your last one, young man,” spoke Mountain Jim severely.