Part 21 (1/2)

Frank seemed to have the same idea, for he hastened into the cabin; and when he immediately returned carrying the repeating gun that had served him on many occasions in the past, Will appeared to think that it was all over but the shouting, such was the confidence he felt in his chum.

”How is it now?” asked Frank, as he came up.

”Why, the tree is heading this way; that is, I mean we seem to be bearing straight down on it,” Jerry replied; and considering the excitement that all of the chums were laboring under just then, it was not strange that he found himself mixed up slightly in his description of the way things were going.

”If we keep on gaining we'll come mighty near running the tree down,”

Bluff added. ”And then you'll get a chance to give the panther his pa.s.sage ticket.”

”But the tree acts queer,” Will declared. ”Every now and then it just swings, and turns around. Now you see it, and now you don't. Sometimes the branches are heading in our direction, and again it's the b.u.t.t; with the ugly cat lying there waiting till he gets good and hungry, when he expects to make a meal from one of that poor family.”

”Huh!” grunted Bluff, ”I rather think that critter is keeping an eye on us. Chances are he just feels it in his bones that we'd be bound to break up his dinner party, somehow; eh, Frank?”

”He's moving,” replied the one addressed; ”and seems to be creeping toward the people right now!”

”Sure!” declared Jerry; ”you can hear them hollering to beat the band; but they make so much noise I don't seem to be able to understand anything they say.”

”They're trying to tell us what the panther is doing; and begging us to shoot him as quick as we can,” Frank said, with a serious look on his face.

”Which same you're only too willing to do, I reckon?” remarked Bluff.

”But the trouble is, I don't seem able to fire from here without taking some chances of hitting one of the people,” Frank went on, betraying what was worrying him so much. ”A bullet can strike the hard limb of a tree, and be deflected in all sorts of queer ways, you know.”

”Frank, you are right, there,” said old Luther Snow, admiringly.

”But we must do something to help them, Frank!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Will, himself ready to undertake the work of rescue if his companions failed to think up a remedy for the trouble.

”That's right!” cried Bluff; and immediately he disappeared in the cabin; which the others knew meant that he was after the pump-gun, upon which he seemed to place so much dependence, though it hardly seemed the right kind of weapon when facing a panther.

”I was thinking,” Frank went on, as if making up his mind; ”that if I dropped into our little dinghy, I might paddle around to the other side of the tree, and get a crack at the beast.”

”You're just right you could, Frank!” admitted Jerry; and even Will, although not used to much in this line, nodded his head.

Then he vanished, as though an idea had struck him; and Frank understood. Will, too, had gone to arm himself, not with a gun, but his snapshot camera, which he meant to use in taking several pictures of the strange scene, with the floating tree, the family hanging in the branches; and perhaps a glimpse of the savage beast crouching there.

Will and Bluff appeared at almost the same time, and it was to find Frank hastening to drop into the little skiff which they dignified by the better sounding name of dinghy or ”d.i.n.ky.” Frank had already placed his rifle aboard, with the muzzle turned away from him, as every careful hunter always makes sure of doing.

”Set me loose, Jerry,” he remarked.

They had almost overtaken the big tree, in the branches of which this strange little comedy, that threatened to become a tragedy at any minute, was taking place.

”Can you see him from up there, boys?” called out Frank, as, paddle in hand, he started the boat down the current, and in a direction that would allow him to get below the tree.

”There! I got a fine shot at him then!” cried Will; who, being an artist, was always on the lookout for a pose, and a picture that would do him credit when exposed to the gaze of his friends at home.

”But he dodged right afterwards,” added Jerry; ”and I don't see him now, Frank.”

”Say, he's climbing up among the branches, I do believe!” called Bluff, who was again on the lookout, gun in hand.

The people in the tree were shouting at a great rate, the man trying to urge Frank to hurry and shoot, the woman and children shrieking in their terror, as they saw the treacherous, sleek beast constantly drawing nearer.