[FROM CHUM TO CHUM.]
BY GASTON V. DRAKE.
XV.—FROM JACK TO BOB.
White Mountains.
DEAR BOB,—I haven't written for some time because I tried an experiment over in the bowling-alley one day week before last which wasn't pleasant. I tried to put my finger in between two of the balls and get it out again before anything happened and couldn't, so I've had to have my whole hand swathed in a bandage ever since, and that's why Sandboys is writing this letter for me. It was too bad it happened the way it did, because we've been having a bowling turnement, and our side was way ahead when I smashed my finger, and we got beaten on the last game by five pins. Sandboys says when he was young his life was saved by a bowling-ball. It was before all the panthers that used to be thick in these mountains had all died out. They used to play havick with this part of the country eating up all the sheep and cows and horses and even tourists with good money in their pockets, and very few families living hereabouts dared to have their windows open at night in the summer-time for fear a panther might jump in and devour them up, even on the top floor. He says they are wonderful jumpers those panthers. He has seen one go up Mount Washington in sixty-three springs, and come down in twenty-nine, and as for jumping from the piazza of this hotel up into the cupola he says that would be about as easy for a healthy panther as falling off a chair would be to you or me. He lived over at a place called Littleton at that time and had a room in the top floor of his father's house. It was in midsummer and an awfully hot night, but being afraid of the panthers that were prowling around, when he went to bed he shut his window and his shutters up tight. Three or four times some of the panthers tried to break through and banged up against the shutters pretty hard, but without success, and finally an hour went by without any more attempts being made, and forgetting that strategy was one of the panther's strong points Sandboys thought they'd gone away and that it would be safe to open his window and get a breath of fresh air because his room had become like an oven, being right under the roof. So he opened the window softly and threw the shutters wide, peeping carefully out first to see if there were any panthers in sight. Unfortunately he looked down into the yard and didn't see the wild animal sitting on top of the telegraph pole across the street, waiting for his pray. "Good," said Sandboys, "they're all gone. I can get a chance to cool off." And he crept back into bed leaving the window wide open, and then the trouble began. He'd hardly got into bed when there came a fearful bang on the side wall just over him. The horrid beast that had been perched on the telegraph pole opposite had jumped across the street, through the window and landed ker-flump against the wall. Fortunately the force of the bang stunned the panther for a minute and Sandboys had presence of mind enough to snatch his pillow out of its case and to pull the pillow-case over the panther's head. It was the work of an instant, as the story-books say, and then he was off. That is, Sandboys was off. He fled through the window, dropped down to the soft earth and made a bee-line for the hotel. "Why did you go to the hotel?" I asked. "Because," he replied, "nobody else ever went there and I thought that would be the last place in which an animal with ingenious instinctiveness would think of looking for me."
My, but Sandboys is wise, but it didn't work. The panther soon recovered from his stun and after pawing at it for a minute managed to get the pillow-case off his head, and began to look around for Sandboys. He looked under the bed, and in the wardrobe and maybe in the bureau drawers. Nobody knows where he didn't look, and finally seeing that the door was still locked he of course knew that Sandboys had escaped by the window which shows you what sagacious animals panthers can be when they try. Well, when the panther saw that, he was mad. When panthers start out to pray they want to pray, and if they don't pray they want to know why, being, as I said, sagacious. So he says to himself it's Sandboys or nothing for supper and out he starts in pursuit and as luck would have it, being hungry, he thought he'd stop at the hotel a minute and take a bite out of the landlord. He stopped and the first thing he knew was that he was face to face with Sandboys. Sandboys was nonplussed—which is Latin for rattled—for a minute and so was the panther, for Sandboys was the last person he expected to find there. The panther's surprise was Sandboys' chance and he took it. He rushed from the room before the panther had recovered and was soon on the top floor whence, by a back staircase he rushed down, and out into the night. But the panther started in pursuit as usual. As he ran along Sandboys reasoned thus: "Nobody who has ever been to that hotel once, ever was known to go back again. I'll go back and delude the beast," which he did, but the door was locked and he had to take refuge in the bowling-alley. But the panther knew a thing or two and as Sandboys went in one door of the alley and locked the door after him and threw the keys away, he climbed in the window at the other end and there they were again, face to face: Sandboys at one end of the alley, the panther at the other and all was dark except one could see the glittering eye of the other. The panther was delighted. Everything seemed to be going his way and Sandboys was in despair. Escape seemed impossible. "I'll play with him," thought the panther and he took one step and crouched, smiling softly to himself when all of a sudden Sandboys thought, "Here I'm the champion bowler of this town, it's my only chance." The panther took another step and crouched. Sandboys took a ball. "I'll aim between his eyes and hit his nose," said Sandboys and he let go. It was dark, but it was a strike. The ball rolled thunderously down the alley. The panther didn't know what it was, and the first thing he knew as he laid his nose flat in the middle of the alley the ball came crashing into it, broke his neck and he lay dead, and Sandboys was saved.
How's that for an adventure?
Yours truly Jack per Sandboys.
