n the ear just as he had you down and was
beginning to claw you? And are you not ashamed of yourself, after
that, to say that any lion is too big for me?"

Without stopping for Shorty to strain himself trying to remember that
bear-hunt, round she cracked to Boston--giving Shorty and Santa Fe a
chance to get in a corner and talk quick in a whisper--and says to
him: "We just _are_ in luck! These big old ones are the real fighters,
you know. Only a year ago there was a gentleman from the East here on
a lion-hunt--it was his first, and he did not seem to know quite how
to manage matters--and one of these big fierce ones caught him and
finished him. It was very horrible! The dreadful creature sprang on
him in the dark and almost squeezed him to death, and then tore him to
pieces while he still was alive enough to feel it, and ended by eating
so much of him that only a few scraps of him were left to send East
to his friends. This one seems to be just that kind. Isn't it
splendid! What superb sport we shall have in getting him--you and I!"

What the Hen had to say about the way lions done business--'specially
their eating hunters like they was sandwiches on a free-lunch
counter--seemed to take some of the load off Boston, and as he got
soberer he wasn't so careless as he'd been. From his looks it was
judged he was thinking a lion some sizes smaller would be a better fit
for him; but he couldn't well say so--with the Hen going on about
wanting hers as big as they made 'em--so he took a brace, and sort of
swelled himself out, and said the bigger this one was the better he'd
be pleased.

"But I cannot permit you, my dear young lady," he says, "to share with
me the great danger incident to pursuing so ferocious a creature. I
alone must deal with it. To-morrow I shall familiarize myself with the
locality where Mr. Smith has found its tracks; and to-morrow night, or
the night after--as the weather may determine. Of course nothing can
be done in case of rain--I will seek the savage brute in its lair. And
then we shall find out"--Boston worked up as much as he could of a
grin, but it seemed to come hard and didn't fit well--"which of us
shall have the other's skin!"

"Danger for me!" says the Hen, giving him another of them looks of
hers. "Just as though I would not be as safe, with a brave man like
you to protect me, as I am teaching school! And to-morrow night,
indeed! Do you think lions are like dentists--only the other way rou