It all looked very simple to Tubby now; so those Spanish courtiers who had been declaring that discovering America was no great task after Columbus had shown them how to stand an egg on an end, doubtless sneered and said it was easy enough.
The little heap of trash was ignited, and just as Rob had said, it began to emit a pungent smoke that was driven against and under the door by the breeze.
“Keep ready, Andy!” Rob called out. “I thought I heard a scratching sound just then!”
Tubby ran back so as to be able to see the crown of the low chimney. He was only in time, and no more, for even as he managed to glimpse the apex of the slab-and-hard-mud vent something suddenly came into view. As Tubby stared with round eyes he saw a monstrous wildcat crouching there, looking this way and that, as if tempted to give battle to its human enemies, by whom it had been dispossessed from the scene of its royal feast.
Then there came a loud crash. Andy had fired his gun. Tubby shivered as he saw the big feline give a wild leap upward and then come struggling down the slight slope of the roof, clawing furiously, and uttering screams of expiring fury.
Andy was ready to send in a second shot if it chanced to be needed, but this proved not to be the case, for the struggles of the stricken beast quickly ended. The three boys hurried forward, and stood over the victim of Andy’s clever marksmanship. The cat was one of the largest Rob had ever run across, and even in death looked so terrible that Tubby had an odd shiver run through his system as he stared in mingled awe and curiosity down at the creature.
“Too bad in one way that the poor old thing couldn’t finish his feast in peace,” Tubby was saying, “but then I suppose it’s the chances of war. There’s always a state of open war between these bobcats and all men who walk in the woods.”
“Well, I should say yes!” cried Andy, patting himself proudly on the chest. “I’ll always call this one of the best day’s jobs I ever did. Think of the pretty partridges, the innocent squirrels, the bounding jack-rabbits and such things, that I’ve saved the lives of with that one grand shot. If this beast lived three years longer it’d surprise you, Tubby, to count up the immense amount of game that it’d devour in that time. I never spare a cat under any circumstances.”
“Do you think it was all alone in the cabin?” asked the timid one.
“We’ll soon find out,” Andy told him, as he saw to it that his gun was in condition again for immediate use, and then started toward the closed door.