his twin promptly. "That
was simply a case of necessity."

"Anyway, you've got the lion, and that skin will make some rug," declared
Spouter.

"I wonder if there are any other mountain lions around?" remarked Gif.
"I'd like to get a shot at one of them myself."

"They often travel in pairs," answered Joe Jackson. "But if you're going
after lions you had better arm yourselves with rifles. It was only good
luck that brought this beast down with pistol bullets."

"The pistols were good enough at close quarters," answered Andy. "Just
the same, I'd rather shoot the next mountain lion from a distance," he
added dryly.

Of course, when the boys rode up to the ranch home with the carcass of
the dead lion there was a good deal of excitement among the older folks
and the girls, and Fred and Andy had to tell their story in detail.

"You really must be more careful in the future, boys," declared Mrs. Sam
Rover. "Why, you might have been trampled under foot by the cattle, as
well as chewed up by this mountain lion!"

"I didn't know there was any danger of the cattle stampeding," put in
Mrs. Tom Rover.

"Oh, Jackson assures me that the stampede wasn't of much consequence,"
remarked Songbird Powell. "But, of course, the boys shouldn't have gotten
in front of the animals. But this question of facing a mountain lion is
another story."

"Py chimminy! you don't vas cotch me facin' no mountain lions," declared
Hans Mueller emphatically. "I did me dot years ago, ven I go oud mit your
faders. But I ton't do him no more alreatty."

"Oh, Fred, you must be more careful!" protested May to the youngest
Rover, when she got the chance. "Suppose that lion had jumped right on
top of you?"

"Believe me, May, I didn't want to get so close," he answered. "When we
discovered the beast he wasn't over twenty feet away."

"And they told us there weren't very many wild beasts around here!" came
from Martha. "After this I guess we had better be careful how we roam
through the woods and along the river."

"Oh, they're not likely to harm you unless you corner them," said
Songbird Powell. "They'll sneak away from you if you give them half a
chance. It's only when they're cornered or when they're needing food that
they are really combative."

The mountain lion was skinned and the pelt taken away by the ranch
foreman to be cured, and then Fred and Andy took it easy for the rest of
the day.

"Isn't it queer that Brassy Bangs has never showed hi