“Oh! don’t worry about that!” sang out Dolph, cheerily: “mistakes will happen you know, even in the best regulated families. I’ve done worse than that more’n a few times; and I’ve hunted in a good many countries with my dad, you know. Wow! I wonder now, can that be the sly cat? Yes, looks like I can see twin glow-worms up there in that dark pocket. Had I better give him a try, Teddy?”
“If you feel pretty sure it’s the ham thief, why, go ahead and pot him; but as quick as you shoot, leap to one side; because I’ve always heard these lynx are just chain lightning on the jump, even when they’ve got their death wound.”
“Reckon I will then, because I ain’t hankering after feeling his claws rake me fore and aft,” replied Dolph, who came from Cincinnati, and was the son of a well known millionaire of that city.
“Steady, boy; make sure!” cautioned Teddy, as he saw that the other was aiming upward with his expensive gun, the finest that a celebrated firm in England could put together for any amount of money; but which even then Teddy would not have accepted for his own tried and true weapon.
Hardly had he spoken than Dolph fired. Remembering the warning given by his campmate the Cincinnati boy jumped backward as soon as he had fairly pulled the trigger. His heels catching in a root, the presence of which he knew nothing about, as a consequence he was tripped up, and went headlong to the ground.
Dolph was conscious of a shrill scream, this time not of anger but pain; and that some heavy body flew through space in the very spot which his form had occupied. That fall was the finest thing that could have happened to him, after all, because, in spite of his movement, the leaping lynx must have landed on him only for his sprawling on his back.
Realizing the desperate nature of his position Dolph rolled over once or twice before he even attempted to regain an erect position. Then, on his knees he worked at the mechanism of his expensive imported shotgun, only to find that somehow his fall must have jammed it; or else in his excitement he failed to do exactly the thing that was necessary, for he could not get another shell in the firing chamber.
“This way, quick; I can’t get my gun to work!” he shrilled, half believing that in another instant he would have the unfuriated and wounded lynx on top of him.
He could hear a dreadful threshing about only a few yards away from him; and the awful thought flashed through his head that perhaps the beast was clawing one of his chums. But as he immediately after saw Teddy coming on the jump from one direction, while the Michigan boy showed up from the other Dolph’s mind became easier.