“Oh, he’s all right,” Sandy explained. “It’s just that he gets under my skin sometimes.”
“What would you do with a mountain-lion trophy?” Mr. Cook asked. “Do you have room for him at home?”
Sandy thought a moment. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “But I know what I could do.”
“What?”
“Start a trophy room at Valley View High. Jerry and I could build some cases, and Quiz—he’s our brainy friend—could write up descriptions of all the animals—like they have in natural-history museums.”
Mr. Cook nodded approvingly. “Good idea. A museum’s the perfect place for a lion. But over a fireplace, I’d rather have a six-point buck any day.”
“How do you rate big-game trophies, Dad?” Mike asked.
“That varies with the animal,” Mr. Cook replied. “An elk, for example, is measured for spread between antlers, and the number of points—or branches—growing out of each antler. If I remember rightly, the record elk had a spread of nearly seventy inches and about seventeen points.”
“Whew!” Sandy whistled. “He must have been built like a truck!”
“He was a real granddaddy, all right,” said Mr. Cook and smiled at the memory. “But to get back to your question about guns, Sandy. Here are the cannons we’ll be taking along.” Mr. Cook got up and moved over to the gun rack at the end of the room.