Bandy-legs was the first to finish. The fire was burning briskly, and a
nice red bed of embers between the side stones invited the attention of
the cook of the morning, namely himself.

"Say, where'd you hang that half of a ham, Owen?" he asked, after what
seemed a vain search.

"Just where we always kept it," was the reply; "suspended from that limb
of the oak over--well, did anybody change it around or take it inside
the tent?" and Owen looked his surprise, when the others all shook their
heads in the negative.

"It's gone!" cried Bandy-legs, looking very unhappy; "our nice ham's
been hooked!"

A rush was made for the oak tree in question.

"There's the twine I hung it up by, dangling from the limb right now,"
declared Owen, pointing.

"But show me the ham, will you?" asked Bandy-legs. "We can't make a
decent breakfast off string that's only got a ham flavor, can we?"

"Why, it must have been full six feet up from the ground," remarked
Steve, for the benefit of Bandy-legs; "I never thought before a panther
could leap _that_ high!"

"Oh, gracious!" began Bandy-legs; and then, seeing the look on Steve's
face, he understood that the other was only baiting him for a fall:
whereupon he shut his jaws hard together, and determined not to be taken