with the animal.

Julie tried to step on the leash, but he dragged her foot so that she
suddenly sat down violently on the ground. Then he nosed under the grass
that hung over the brook, and finally swam over to the other side. There
he stood and watched nervously, but the girls could not get him back
again.

"Talk about his minding! Why, he's the cussedest dog I ever saw!"
complained Julie, as she got up and shook her clothes free of the
briars.

"There's no use standing in this baking sun to look at Jake standing on
the other bank!" exclaimed Joan, angrily eying the disobedient dog.

"We'll go back to the shady trail and watch for Gilly," said Julie,
starting back to join the Captain. But they kept calling to Jake as they
retraced their steps.

When they got back to the slight elevation where Mrs. Vernon and Amy had
waited, anxiously watching results, they saw Jake make a leap and swim
quickly back across the brook to the log.

"He must have seen or heard something that time," whispered Hester.

"Yes, 'cause he's stretched out on that log nervously wagging his tail
with his eyes glued on something," admitted Amy.

Then they caught their breath. The scouts saw a movement in the green
leaves at the end of the log and then--Jake was creeping stealthily
across that log, as if he also saw what he wanted to pounce upon.

"Oh, oh! Jake's got it! He's jumped upon it!" screamed Julie,
frantically.

"Why, it's a great big tomcat! They're fighting!" cried Hester, too
excited to stand still, but jumping up and down.

"A cat! Gilly hasn't a cat that color!" declared Joan.

"Girls!" fairly hissed Julie. "I bet it's a wildcat--and it will kill
Jake as sure as anything!"

"No, no! Oh, girls, I just saw it, too! It's a skunk! Run, run--for your
lives!" cried Mrs. Vernon, turning to run up the trail towards the
bungalow.

But several of the scouts would not desert the dog. He had carried the
skunk off its feet with his unexpected leap upon it, and the two rolled
and fought madly for supremacy. The leash, instead of tripping Jake, got
tangled in the skunk's legs, and both animals rolled back and forth.

The enraged beast fired the deadly fluid to blind her antagonist, but it
drenched the fallen tree only. Then Jake caught a grip on her throat and
shook her head; still she was game and kept on struggling.

Again they rolled over together, the skunk trying to get to the brink of
the water, where she would manage to rol