CHAPTER XI.

BUMPUS' STOCK ABOVE PAR.

"Same old cat again!" burst out Giraffe; and he was in the act of raising his gun, to his shoulder this time, when Thad caught hold of it.

"Don't be silly, Giraffe!" cried the patrol leader.

"But--it _is_ a cat!" exclaimed the other, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of one hand, and looking again.

Meanwhile Step Hen had cautiously advanced a pace or two, staring at the dangling object as though he did not know whether to really believe his eyes or not.

Giraffe, seeing him going on, pushed to his side; and when the two of them came close to the object that had gripped their attention, they turned to exchange stares.

"A dead cat!" said Giraffe, solemnly.

"And hung up by the hind legs to that limb; now who could have done that?" demanded Step Hen.

"Must have been the same old critter that tackled our poor chum, Bumpus, back yonder. Some friendly forest ranger just happened along in the nick of time, and used his rifle on the yowler. Here's where the bullet hit him, right in the heart," and Giraffe laid his finger on the wound.

"But say, here's where another caught him on the square head, and this hole shows where yet a third passed through his body. Why, he's been riddled, all shot to pieces, that's plain!" Step Hen declared, positively; and the other two listened, not wanting to break in just yet.

"Buckshot, not a rifle bullet ended this here cat, that's sure," said Giraffe.

"And say, Bumpus is carrying a two-shot Marlin scatter gun that uses buckshot cartridges!" went on Step Hen.

They looked at each other again, and then once more eyed the swinging trophy of _some one's_ skill.

"But it's silly to think of _him_ knockin' over a ferocious animal like this here cat," Giraffe ventured to say. "I never saw a bigger one; and he must have looked fierce enough, I tell you, when he was alive, and could arch up his back, and just growl in a way to make your blood run cold."

"H'm! s'pose you take a squint up to where the legs are tied to the limb of that tree, Giraffe?" suggested Step Hen, chuckling now with a new sense of humor.

The tall scout craned his long neck, the better to see.

"Jupiter! say, that does look like it, now," he admitted.

"That's what it is, sure enough," avowed Step Hen, "a piece cut from that rope Bumpus carries. You can see it's braided sash cord, and I'd know that old rope among a thousand. He done it, all right, Bumpus did!"

Giraffe whistled, to indicate the extent of his amazement.

"Who'd ever think he had it in him?" he observed, scratching his head as he stood there, and gazed at the dangling wildcat. "I reckon, now, he must a had the best luck ever, when he just shut his eyes and pulled trigger. This old cat must a wanted to commit suicide. P'raps he just climbed up and looked into the muzzle of Bumpus' gun."

"You know better'n that, Giraffe. He must have been some distance away, or else the buckshot wouldn't have scattered as much as it did. I reckon, now, our fat chum is improving a heap. That was a great shot."

"Good for you, Step Hen," Thad broke in to say. "And take another look at the cat, will you? Tell me if you see anything strange about him? I imagine the one Giraffe chased away was a mate to this, and must have been smelling at the body still, when we came up."

Step Hen uttered a little cry, and then remarked:

"Well, would you believe it, the old thing was a cripple. You can see he only had three paws. The aft fore paw is gone. Like as not it was bitten off in some fight he had long ago."

"You're wrong!" cried Giraffe, who had leaned forward to examine the injury at closer quarters. "That ain't any old hurt. The blood is as fresh as any of the rest, and I guess it only happened yesterday."

"Fine. Go on," declared Thad, and the tall scout, spurred on by that word of commendation, to exert himself to the utmost, was quick to continue.

"I can see that the paw wasn't bitten off, nor yet shot away," he remarked. "The cut is as clean as a whistle, and I reckon only a sharp hunting knife would do the job like that."

"But what would Bumpus want to go and hack a paw off the old cat for?" objected Step Hen.

"Why, for a trophy, silly," answered the' other, quickly. "He just didn't know how to skin the beast, and hardly liked the job of toting it all around with him. So you see, to convince the rest of us that he'd really and truly knocked over a wildcat, he just took that paw along. How's that, Mr. Scoutmaster?"

"You hit the nail on the head that time, Giraffe," answered Thad, pleased at the way the other had figured things out, for it proved that, once aroused to do his best, the tall scout possessed the ability required for reading "signs."

And this was one of the things that Thad Brewster, as acting head of the troop, always tried to impress upon the minds of the scouts under him. "Let every tub stand on its own bottom." "Learn to depend on yourself; do your own thinking; keep on the watch, and see all the wonderful things that are constantly happening around you in the great storehouse of Nature." "Be awake, active"--in a word, as the manual of the organization has it, "be prepared."

Giraffe and Step Hen had been tremendously staggered by the knowledge that the stout comrade, whom they always looked down on as a weakling, and called their "tenderfoot pard" with such a tone of patronage, seemed to be actually waking up, and doing things.

It was not enough that he exhibit the nerve to want to go out in search of a bear, all by himself. There was that episode of the muck bed for example--that sent Bumpus' stock up a few points above par. It revealed the fact that in an emergency the fat boy could actually _think for himself_.

Instead of allowing himself to get "rattled" after discovering that he was gripped fast in the tenacious mud, Bumpus had looked around him, and noticed that convenient limb above his head.

Of course he had stretched out his hands toward it, but vainly, as they must have fallen short by two feet or more of reaching the limb. And then Bumpus remembered the fine rope he was carrying around his fat waist, under the conviction that it might come in handy some time or other.

Well, it did. Bumpus had drawn himself out of the mud, and up to the friendly limb of the tree; though it surely must have proven a most severe tax on his untrained muscles, he was such a heavy weight.

Giraffe admitted, deep down in his mind, that he could not have done any better himself.

And now, here was this same blundering, awkward Bumpus, actually knocking over a monstrous wildcat, one of the most ferocious animals roaming through the swamps adjoining the big timber belt.

It was commencing to dawn upon the minds of those two boys that, beginning right now, they would have to revise their opinion of Bumpus. He hardly seemed a fit candidate for the greenhorn grade of scout. Really, there seemed to be some class to this work he was putting up, that promised to raise him high up in the estimation of his comrades.

In fact, both of the boys who stood there, examining the hanging bob-cat, were beginning to wonder what next Bumpus would do.

"Seems to be another feller," remarked Step Hen.

"Right you are," replied Giraffe. "I never would have believed he had it in him. Biggest surprise ever. Gosh! Step Hen, after this, d'ye know, it wouldn't take much to make me expect bigger things."

"You mean----"

"That if he keeps on going at this warm pace, Bumpus might even get his old bear yet, who knows," Giraffe asserted.

Thad and Allan noticed with considerable amusement and satisfaction that the boys no longer alluded to the lost comrade as "poor old Bumpus," and "our tenderfoot pard." Their pity for the clumsy scout was fast changing into sincere admiration, respect. And surely Bumpus deserved it.

"A good lesson all around, eh Thad?" whispered Allan in the other's ear.

"Just what it is," was the scoutmaster's reply in the same low tone.

"Bumpus is learning to depend on himself," Allan went on.

"And these boys have been taught to be more careful how they allow themselves to feel so superior to a comrade who happens to be slower about waking up. They won't forget this in a hurry."

"Sure they won't," added Allan.

"Come, boys, let's be going on," Thad remarked, aloud. "I don't exactly like the looks of the sky over yonder where the breeze is coming out of."

These words of the scoutmaster caused Giraffe and Step Hen to turn and look back of them. So much engaged had they been in keeping tabs on the trail, and scanning the woods on either side for a possible glimpse of Bumpus, that neither of them had once bothered about looking at the heavens.

Hence a great surprise awaited them.

"Wow! did you ever see blacker clouds?" exclaimed Giraffe, apparently deeply impressed by what he had discovered.

"Looks like we might be in for a big storm," remarked Step Hen uneasily, for he never felt as brave as he might when the elements were battling with one another; but in order to disguise his timidity he added: "but then, as we ain't sugar or salt, I guess we won't melt."

As they hurried along through the timber, still following the plain trail left by the lost scout, it might have been noticed that Allan and Thad really looked more serious than the other pair. And there was a good reason for it, too.