exclaimed Bumpus, shivering. "If they're agoing to take me again I see
my finish; because some night I'll walk off a precipice, and that'll be
the end of me."

"We'll like as not have to tie you by the leg every night, just like Jim
is now; and that'll stop you prancing around loose, trying to set my
pets free in your sleep," Step Hen went on to say, reassuringly; but
somehow Bumpus did not seem to take to the idea the least bit.

"You let me alone, that's all, Step Hen Bingham," he told the other,
"and I'll fix my own business. That's what comes of you keeping the
silly old owl. Serve you about right if his mate dropped in and bit the
end of your big toe off to pay you up for fastening that chain on the
poor thing's leg."

"Say, I like that, now; when you were the very first one to ask if we
couldn't keep that same owl!" Step Hen told him.

"Wow! that hurts some, let me tell you, fellows!" groaned the fat scout,
when Allan was putting some salve, calculated to help heal the wound, on
the torn place, and then with the assistance of the scout-master started
binding the hand up with windings of soft linen that came in a tape roll
two inches wide.

"But let me tell you it's some chilly out here, with only pajamas on,"
objected Giraffe; "and for one I'm going to skip back under my blanket,
where I can snuggle down. Somebody remember to throw a little wood on
the fire, please. Let Davy do it."

Of course that really meant either the scoutmaster or Allan; and Giraffe