"No, no! Oh, girls, I just saw it, too! It's a skunk! Run, run—for your lives!" cried Mrs. Vernon, turning to run up the trail towards the bungalow.
But several of the scouts would not desert the dog. He had carried the skunk off its feet with his unexpected leap upon it, and the two rolled and fought madly for supremacy. The leash, instead of tripping Jake, got tangled in the skunk's legs, and both animals rolled back and forth.
The enraged beast fired the deadly fluid to blind her antagonist, but it drenched the fallen tree only. Then Jake caught a grip on her throat and shook her head; still she was game and kept on struggling.
Again they rolled over together, the skunk trying to get to the brink of the water, where she would manage to roll them both in. But Jake understood that motive, too, and braced his feet against the stones in their way.
A second volley of the ill-smelling spray from the skunk struck at random, and then Jake gave her neck another sudden shake. This time it was effective, and the head suddenly hung limp. Jake had broken her neck, and was the victor!
He now took great pains to drag the trophy through the brush to present to his friends in the roadway. The leash caught several times and almost snapped his own neck, and the skunk was heavy, but he managed to drag it along.
When Julie saw his intent she screamed and warned the girls to flee! And in running up the trail they met Mr. Gilroy, who had been summoned by half-crazed Betty's crying, "Jake and the beaver are killing each other!"
Mr. Gilroy did not stop to hear what Julie tried to gasp, but he ran down and saw Jake bringing the skunk out into the pathway.
"To heel! to heel, Jake!" shouted Mr. Gilroy, holding his nose when the dog tried to jump upon him in the ecstasy of having achieved such a great deed.
"What shall we do with him? He can't sleep at Dandelion camp to-night," wailed the girls, as they, too, held their noses.