“Dey say Jum-bo, we’se ah lookin’ fo’ you, chile!”
Whatever Rob’s reply might have been it was forestalled the next instant by an entirely unsuspected and startling happening. From the woods ahead of them, came a sudden trampling of feet.
“Quick, Jumbo. Down in here!” exclaimed the Boy Scout, dragging the quaking negro down into a clump of bushes. They were just in time. The next moment half-a-dozen dark figures rushed by them through the woods, going in the direction of the hut they had just vacated so summarily.
“What on earth does this mean?” gasped Rob, half aloud in his utter astonishment. Parting the bushes a bit, he could perceive the dark outlines of the hut and the newcomers deploying across the moonlit strip in front of it.
A loud crash echoed through the sleeping woods as the door of the hut was suddenly slammed shut.
Almost simultaneously, the walls of the hut and the space in front of it seemed to spit vicious flashes of fire.
“Gee whiz!” cried Rob, excitedly, “they’re attacking the hut, Jumbo! What under the sun does this mean?”
“Dunno,” said the negro, “but mah hopes is dat dey jes’ nachully exterminaccouminicate each other like dem Killarney cats.”
“Kilkenny cats, you mean, don’t you?”
“It’s all de same,” retorted Jumbo, “but say, Marse Rob, we’d bettah be clearing out ob here.”