"Just what I thought you'd give us!" cried Steve, making a move as
though ready to spring away into the surrounding darkness, gun in hand.

"Hold on," added Max, taking a firm hold on the coat of the impulsive
chum; "we'd like to know why you try to run off, when I remarked that I
thought it mightn't be an animal at all, but a human being?"

"Why?" repeated the other, struggling a little as if wanting to break
away, but finally giving up the effort, "because I just know who it is,
that's what, and I'd give a heap to lay my hands on him, that's all."

"B-b-but, Steve, mebbe the r-r-rest of us'd l-l-like to know, too,"
stammered Toby, eagerly.

"Yes, and sure you wouldn't be rushing off like a house afire, to leave
us here without the gun, while you lost yourself in all this tangled
undergrowth," Owen suggested, reproachfully.

Steve looked a little conscience stricken.

"That's right, it would be mean of me, fellows," he admitted, as he
glanced at the gun he had snatched up so eagerly. "And likewise silly in
the bargain, because in this pitch darkness I'd like as not only stub my
toe, and take a beastly header into some snake hole. I guess I'll simmer
down, and stay where I'm most needed."

"But, Steve," complained Bandy-legs, "you ain't told us yet who you
believe it was made all that noise? And do you think he did it just to
give us a scare?"