Out with Gun and Camera Part 8

Supper in the dining-room below was rather a haphazard affair.

It was eaten behind closed blinds and in semi-darkness, the lady of the house being afraid to make a light, for fear of allowing the roaming lion to see the eating, and her guests. Just as the hired girl was bringing in the dessert a distant shot rang out, and uttering a scream the girl, whose nerves were on edge, let the dessert saucers fall to the floor with a crash.

"Somebody must have shot the lion!" cried Giant.

"Or shot at him," corrected Whopper.

"Just look what you have done, Mary!" cried Mrs. Carson in dismay.

"I couldn't help it, mum," answered the servant girl. "That lion gettin' loose has scared me stiff!"

"Well, I am scared myself. Clear up the muss, and be careful next time. Boys, you'll have to do without the preserves. But you can have cake."

"Cake is good enough for me," answered Snap, and the others said about the same.

Not long after that came another shot, this time from the corner at the end of the block.

"They are coming this way!" exclaimed the doctor's son. "Let us go upstairs again and see what is doing."

"Be careful!" screamed his aunt. "That lion may jump right up to the second story window!"

The boys went to an upper window, and then, growing bolder, stepped out on the top of the front piazza. They saw several men running along a cross street. Then another shot rang out.

"The lion must be in this vicinity," said Snap.

"I saw something then---over yonder!" cried Giant, and pointed to the back of a yard down by the corner of the street.

"A dog---and he is legging it for dear life," returned Whopper. "He looks as if he wouldn't stop this side of the North Pole!"

"Perhaps the lion scared him," said Shep. "I think-----Look!"

The doctor's son broke off short and pointed with his hand. Gazing in the direction indicated, the lads saw something dark slinking on the opposite side of a high picket fence.

"It's the lion!" said Snap in a whisper. "See his tail swaying from side to side?"

"Oh, for a rifle!" murmured Whopper. "Aunty, have you a gun?"

called Shep. "We see the lion!"

"No, I haven't any gun," answered the lady of the house quickly.

"And you had better get inside as quickly as you can. The lion may leap up at you."

"I don't think he can jump so high."

"There are some of the men with their guns," went on Giant. "See, they are running around to the front of that house."

"I wonder if they see the lion?" asked Snap. "Let us yell to them,"

suggested Whopper. One after another the boys set up a shout. But the hunters were now out of sight and paid no attention to them.

A moment later the lads saw the lion leave the vicinity of the fence, cross the yard, and disappear behind the side of a barn.

Then came a sudden smas.h.i.+ng of boards, and a wild-eyed horse burst into view and ran down the street at top speed.

"The lion scared that horse," said Whopper. "Well, he's enough to scare anything."

"Boys! boys! why don't you come in?" pleaded Mrs. Carson. "If he sees you he'll surely try to get up on the piazza."

"If he turns this way we'll come in and shut the blinds," answered her nephew.

"It may be too late then."

"Oh, I think not, aunty."

Another shot rang out, and then the boys saw the men running around the barn.

"Perhaps they have managed to shut the lion in the barn," said Snap.

"If they are circus men they would rather capture the lion than kill him," returned the doctor's son. "Lions must be worth a good deal of money."

It was now about seven o'clock, and not as light as it had been.

A few minutes pa.s.sed and the men did not seem to be doing anything.

"Do you know what I think?" declared Whopper. "I think that lion is hiding on them."

"Just what I was going to say," came from Giant. "Maybe he has crawled to some dark corner of the barn and n.o.body has the courage to stir him up."

"Do you want to stir him up?" asked Snap dryly.

"Not on your necktie!" answered the small youth.

"Let him sleep in peace," added Whopper.

"He won't sleep," said the doctor's son.

"Something doing, now!" cried Whopper a few minutes later. He had seen one of the men run across the yard. "Why, I declare, there is the lion in the yard next door!"

"How did he get there?" asked Snap.

"I don't know."

"That man is going to take another shot!" cried Shep as he saw a gun raised.

"And there goes the lion!" cried Snap as the form of the animal arose swiftly in the air. With grace and precision the lord of the animal world cleared the back fence of the yard and crouched down in the street, close to a tree.

"He's heading this way!" burst out the doctor's son. "Maybe we had better get indoors."

"Oh, he can't leap up here," insisted Giant, who was brave, even though small.

"We'll take no chances," was Shep's answer. "Come."

He turned to the window, and so did Snap and Whopper. At that minute one of the men came around the corner of the street. The lion leaped from behind the tree into the roadway. Pulling up his gun, the man banged away wildly, for he was nervous and frightened.