with a doleful groan. "I think you're about as mean as you can be, to
let a poor fellow in his excitement do such a thing."

"Why, however was I to know?" said the tall scout, chuckling as though
it struck him as a joke that Step Hen, in his sudden anxiety to scare
the prowler away, should have thrown his own shoe at the cat. "Besides,
I had troubles of my own, just about that time, let me tell you. But
mebbe you can find your old shoe again; because the water ain't so very
deep up ahead there."

"No need to bother," sang out Bumpus, who was taking his trout down
tenderly, and examining it to see how much damage the claws of the
intruder had done, if any, "because there the shoe is right now, on
shore, and all right."

That gave Step Hen reason to say he knew he could never have been silly
enough to cast his shoe in such a way as to hurl it overboard; but all
the same he was pleased to be able to recover it in a dry condition,
after all.

"Who'll clean it while I get a fire started ashore?" asked Giraffe,
presently, when they had finished their dressing.

"No hurry," remarked Thad; "for while the sun's getting ready to come
up, and the storm petered out after all, I guess the lake's a bit too
rough for us to go out for some time yet. Such a big body of water can
kick up some sea when it gets in the humor; and some of the party don't
seem to hanker after that rising and falling motion."

Bumpus himself decided to do the last honors to his "noble capture," and