"Really?" cried the Unwiseman, all excitement. "Dear me—glad you called me. Is he loose?"
"Well," hesitated Whistlebinkie, hardly knowing how to answer, "it-ain't-exactly-tied up, I guess."
"Ain't any danger of its coming into the house and biting people, is there?" asked the Unwiseman, rummaging through the carpet-bag for his air-gun, which he had purchased in Paris while the others were visiting Versailles.
"No," laughed Whistlebinkie. "Tstoo-big."
"Mercy—it must be a fearful big one," said the Unwiseman. "I hope it's muzzled."
Armed with his air-gun, and carrying a long rope with a noose in one end over his arm, the Unwiseman started out.
"Watcher-gone-'tdo-with-the-lassoo?" panted Whistlebinkie, struggling manfully to keep up with his companion.
"That's to tie him up with in case I catch him alive," said the Unwiseman, as they emerged from the door of the hotel and stood upon the little hotel piazza from which all the new arrivals were gazing at the wonderful peak before them, rising over sixteen thousand feet into the heavens, and capped forever with a crown of snow and ice.