ey had me all flabbergasted.

Pretty soon they left the path altogether and I looked in the bushes for
hairs, but I couldn't find a single one.

"Anyway," I said to myself, "one thing sure, that animal has five toes on
his front feet and only four on his hind feet and I never saw any tracks
like that before or even pictures of them."

I wasn't exactly scared, but just the same I was kind of glad when I got
to the village.

CHAPTER VII

I MEET THE STRANGER

Anyway, that was the smallest village I ever saw to have such big tracks
right near it. All I could see was two houses and the post office, and the
post office was so small that you could almost put your arm down the
chimney and open the front door. But, one thing sure, you could buy
everything you wanted in that post office. You could buy a plough or a
lollypop or anything. It smelled kind of like corn inside.

I got some lead sinkers and some crackers and a couple of chops for
Charlie Seabury, because it makes him thirsty to eat fish--that's what
he says. The man didn't have any mosquito dope, but there were some boxes
of fly paper on the counter and just happened to think that if we stayed
in our bivouac camp the next morning, it might be good to have some on
account of the flies at dinner time. So I bought a box full.

Then I said to the man, "I guess there are wild animals around here."

He said, "Wall, I reckon thar daon't be many no more. Yer ain't expectin'
ter catch 'em with fly paper, be yer?"

"Just the same," I told him, "I saw the tracks of one that must be big
enough to eat this whole village. You'd better put the village in the safe
before you go home. Safety first." You can bet I know how to jolly if it
comes to jollying. "I want to get some rope, too," I told him.

He just leaned back and pushed his great big straw hat to the back of his
head and looked over his spectacles and began to grin. He kept his
spectacles 'way down near the end of his nose.

"Ye're one of them scaouts, hey?" he said. "Yet ain't thinkin' to lead any
elephants home with that thar rope naow, be yer?"

I said, "No, I'm going to use the rope to lasso mosquitoes as long as
you haven't got any mosquito dope."

He said, "Wall naow, ye're quite a comic be'nt yer?"

I told him I was a little cut up and my mother and father couldn't do
anything with me.

"'N what else can I do fer yer?" he said, laughing all the while. "Them
tracks wuz caow tracks, youngster, so