ear his shirt
into strips, an' made a rope, with a loop at the end, to slip over the
end of his rifle lyin' on the ground. Next time I get the chance I'm
goin' to fix a nice clothes line, and wrap it around me every time I go
out in the woods. Never know how handy such things might come in. Wonder
how Giraffe's gettin' along with his sawin'? But I don't dare say
another word, or he'll be so mad he might break his silly old bow on my
back."

He walked toward the spot where he could see the dim figure of the
industrious fire worshipper bending low over at his labor.

Again Bumpus sank down to the ground; although he was shivering with the
cold, he did not dare swing his arms around as before, lest it make him
remember how hungry he was.

Sitting there, he listened to the breeze sighing among the branches of
the pines; and to his excited mind it was actually laughing at the
predicament of the wretched chums.

Something else came stealing to his hearing, something that made Bumpus
suddenly sit up, hold his breath, and strain his senses trying to locate
the direction from which it seemed to spring, and at the same time guess
the nature of the sound.

"I wonder now, was that a wildcat growling?" he asked himself.

The thought was so disquieting, owing to the gathering gloom, that he
could not help reaching out his hand toward the heavy Marlin that he had
temporarily laid on the ground near by.

While the sound, whatever it may have been, was not repeated, so far as
Bumpus could tell, still he felt far from satisfied about it. What if
the sly old cat was at that very moment creeping up on them? For all
they knew, it might be close by just then, "inching" its way along, just
as he had watched a tame Tabby do at home, when trying to steal upon a
sparrow it wanted for its dinner.

Bumpus became quite nervous over the thought. He drew back the hammers
of his double-barrel, and began to look around him. All sorts of stories
that he had heard told from time to time about these bobtailed cats of
the pine woods, with their cousin, the lynx, that had tassels on its
ears, now floated before his mind. Naturally they did not tend to ease
the strain under which he was laboring; for where he had before only
imagined he could see one pair of yellow eyes staring at him from out
the gloom, he now began to see them everywhere.

Why, the woods must be full of the creatures, and they were going to set
upon the unfortunate scouts, to ma