“I wouldn’t believe anything you might tell me,” answered the other, with a sneer in his voice that caused Bluff to grit his teeth and wonder whether the stick he held in his hand would be heavy enough to use as a club, in case of necessity.
“Go on, boys,” urged one of the companions of Nackerson, who perhaps had a grain of common sense in his make-up, and realized that it was only fair they should allow the boys a hearing.
“We were down here looking after some mink that use this bank,” Frank continued. “You can see their tracks here and there all around. Our chum who has a camera was taking some pictures, when we discovered an animal close by which at first sight looked something like a wolf, for we heard wolves howling last night.”
Nackerson moved a trifle uneasily at the mention of wolves; it afterward turned out that once he had been treed by a pack of those animals, and came very near freezing to death during a long night’s vigil.
“Then we saw that it was a dog,” continued Frank. “He seemed to be trying to dig out some animal whose scent he had been following. All of a sudden the dog set up a screech, and went away on the jump, with his tail between his legs. A fierce old buck mink in that burrow had given him a nasty dig along his nose with his teeth or his claws.”
Nackerson sneered again, while his ugly face looked more scowling than ever.
“A likely yarn,” he said angrily.
“Take a look at your dog’s nose, and perhaps you’ll see the scratches there, because he’s bleeding now!” Bluff broke in, unable longer to refrain from having a hand in the game.
Nackerson showed no sign of bothering himself; but one of his cronies bent over the dog, which whined when he touched its lacerated muzzle.
“He’s been badly scratched, all right, Bill,” was the report.