ed Bob, who, in the
silence, heard what his comrade was doing.

"I think I scent something, that's all," replied the other.

"Not brimstone and sulphur, I hope?" cried Bob.

"Well, hardly," chuckled the other. "In fact, it seemed to me that it
was only such an odor as you can always detect around the den of a wild
beast!"

"Glory! then Joe didn't dream it, after all; and there may be an old
grizzly in this cave!" ejaculated Bob.

"Not a grizzly," declared Frank, quickly. "If anything, I think it
must be a panther. But he may have left after attacking Joe, so that
we'll have no trouble with the beast."

"I hope so," Bob remarked, as he strove to look seven ways at once,
keeping his finger on the trigger of his repeating rifle all the while.

They were now advancing into the cave.

"Do you think Joe had a torch?" asked Bob, as a new idea came to him.

"Well, he isn't the man to take chances, and he couldn't help but see
the good torch material at the door yonder. But the beast may have
jumped on his back, so he lost his torch before he could see. And then
he fought in the dark. Joe has always been known as a hard fighter,
and with his knife I reckon he could give a good account of himself.
Hello! see here!"

Bob started when his chum gave this sudden exclamation.

"Oh! I thought you had sighted the panther!" he gasped as he lowered
the gun, which had, perhaps through mere instinct, gone up to his
shoulder.

Frank was bending down. He held his torch in such a fashion that he
could see better; and he appeared to be examining something on the rock.

"What is it?" asked Bob, eagerly; "footprints?"

"No, just a little spot of blood," came the reply.

"Fresh, too, I can see," declared the tenderfoot, as he looked. "Does
that mean this is the exact place where Joe had his little circus,
Frank?"

"I reckon it is," replied the other.

"Then if that beast hasn't cleared out we might run across him before
long!" remarked Bob.

"Oh!"

Frank gave utterance to this cry. He had seen some object flash
through the air, and knew it could be nothing else than the lithe body
of a panther making a leap.

The animal must have had a place of hiding close by, from which it had
probably jumped upon the shoulders of Spanish Joe, and now sought to
repeat that act.

Bob was struck by the descending body of the animal; and while he did
not suffer serious injury from the blow, it jarred his arm, and caused
him to