m him, and dashed into the
woods near the camp. There came from the woods the battle cries of
warring animals, but soon all became quiet and the cat came back,
but he growled at intervals throughout the night.

"What got into you, Tom?" said Dick to the lynx the next morning,
after he had looked him over in vain for marks of a fight. "Was it
jimjams, or only a bad nightmare?"

Tom listened gravely and looked as if he could have explained a good
deal if only Dick had understood his language.

Tom followed the boys through the swamp on the morning of their
first tramp, but when they struck a marshy meadow where the water
was knee deep and the mud as much more, with no trees to make it
pleasant for a poor cat, he looked reproachfully at Dick and turned
back toward the camp. At the end of the meadow was a dense thicket
which Ned entered first. He had only advanced a few steps when he
turned back and held up his hand in warning to Dick. The thicket in
which they stood was on the border of a big prairie of rich grass in
which more than a dozen deer, nearly all bucks, could be seen
feeding, with only their backs and antlers showing above the tall
grass, excepting when some buck of a suspicious mind lifted his head
high and gazed warily about him.

[Illustration: "ALL BEYOND THE DARK MEADOW WAS A LIVING MASS"]

"Isn't it us for the big luck, Neddy?" whispered Dick. "When I ate
that very last bit of turk this morning I wondered when I'd get
another meal and Tom asked me in confidence if we meant to let him
starve. And now, just look. There's venison enough for the rest of
the trip."

"It don't belong to us yet. You want to be mighty cautious. You can
sneak up to that tree with the rifle and wait till that nearest buck
shows up in good shape and then drop a bullet somewhere around his
fore-shoulder. Don't fire at his head unless you have to. The brain
is a mighty small mark, and you're not playing to the gallery down
here."

"Ned Barstow, what are you talking about? Take your own rifle and
shoot your own buck. If you don't I'll let out a yell that will
scare the whole bunch to Kingdom Come. I don't run to you with my
gun, whenever I find game, and ask you to shoot it. You mean well,
Neddy boy, but sometimes you get mistaken. I'm afraid I didn't
begin this trip right. I ought to have given you a lickin' every
day, just to keep you in your place."

Ned crawled out to the tree with his rifle and watched for his
chance. T