let me tell you!" declared X-Ray Tyson. "Every wrinkle of
his hide shows as plain as it could. And say, here's one showing Ethan
and me carrying the litter, with Mazie's daddy on the same. I didn't
know you snapped that off."

"You've had great luck so far in all your pictures, haven't you, Phil?"
Ethan went on to say.

"No complaints from me," he was told; "and I do feel I've been in great
luck, as you say. I've got on the track of a fox, and pretty soon I hope
to have his smart phiz along with the rest."

"It'll be a prize collection yet, take that from me," X-Ray announced.

"The funny part of it," continued Ethan, "is the fact that while you'll
have all these pictures, most of the originals you've never seen. That
comes of fixing it so they press the button, and do the flashlight act
themselves."

"Saves a heap of trouble," commented X-Ray, sensibly.

"Of course the main thing is," Phil went on to say, "that you couldn't
get that class of Animated Nature picture in any other way. I'd hate to
stick it out all night, waiting for Mr. 'Possum or Br'er Rabbit to
breeze along, so I could flash him. Besides, the most wary of all, Br'er
Fox, wouldn't come within a hundred feet of a human scent. They've got
too keen noses for that. And yet I expect to show a fox picture soon."

"I wish I had one of that dandy black fox I trapped last winter, and the
pelt of which brought me over a cool three hundred," remarked Ethan; and
X-Ray was heard to take a quick breath as though given a little shock;
at the same time winking aside toward Phil, who frowned, and shook his
head threateningly.

They did not share that enthusiasm with the proud trapper, over that
particular foxskin; simply because they knew it was a very poor specimen
of its kind, and by rights not worth one-tenth the amount of the check
which Ethan had received from the dealer in the distant city--Phil's
uncle, though Ethan never dreamed of such a dreadful thing.

"Well, it strikes me you're a pretty clever weather man after all, Phil,
because I certainly heard far-away thunder right then," and X-Ray as he
said this pointed up at the heavens, which were heavily overcast with
dark clouds.

"Let's get busy then, and see that everything is snug," Phil suggested.

"First of all we must get Mazie and her daddy housed," Ethan remarked.
"By using the pair of rough crutches I made him, and with some help, he
manages to get about after a fashion, though he'd be better