“Well, well,” Tom said, “must have been lonely.”
“Nah, not at all,” he said, seemingly glad of the chance to talk to us. “Plenty excitement a’ right though. ’Nother feller ’n I wuz bunking together here fer two nights. Nary a human soul disturbed us but we hed ’nough frum other directions.”
“How’s that?” I asked, impulsively thinking he might divulge something extraordinary.
“Why,” he went on, “the first night a little imp of a lynx cub kept us awake all through ’till dawn, running around the Lodge and a-makin’ all sorts of divlish noises. We didn’t bother him, but the second night he got ter hollerin’ agin and when I went fer him he made a leap. But I fixed him!”
“Did you kill him?” Tom asked.
“Nah, he wuz too quick fer thet—ter kill him right off. But I shot his front paw near off ’n enough ter make him bleed ter death. He run up the mountain a-howlin’ like fury.
“The next day my buddy ’n I trailed his bloody tracks up the slope a little ways thinking he cudn’t hev gone far bleedin’ like thet. We thought too, we’d get his pelt. But nary a dead lynx did we find nor a live one neither.”
CHAPTER XXV—A GHOST ON THE WIRE
“What do you think became of him?” Tom queried, rather anxiously I thought.
“I cudn’t imagine,” Peters replied, “unless he fell into one of them gully places. Anyway we hed ter be on the move ’n didn’t hev time ter look.”