iling he
was very sure that this last statement of his little friend was true,
whether any others were or not. The railing "wabbled" very much, and
Russ refrained from leaning against it.

"Now, you folks keep back!" whispered Frane shrilly to the colored
children who had followed them. "I want to show him the big fellow that
sleeps down here."

Somewhere he had picked up a piece of bark more than a foot long, which
was rolled into a cylinder. He lay down on the log near the middle of
the brook and began to look down into the brown and rather cloudy water
through this odd spyglass.

"What can you see through that thing?" asked Russ.

"Sh! Wait. Don't let 'em hear you," warned Frane, Junior. Then he
added: "Get down here 'side o' me. When I spot him I'll let you squint
through this too."

Russ understood now that his companion was trying to see one of the fish
that lived in the stream--perhaps the "big fellow" Frane had spoken of.
Russ grew quite excited and he took off his jacket and rolled up his
sleeves. He knelt down beside Frane, and finally lay right down on his
stomach and likewise peered over the side of the log.

The log-bridge had been made quite flat on its upper surface with a
broadaxe, and all the bark had long since worn off. It was all of thirty
feet long, but it was just as firm as the arch of a stone bridge.

"There!" whispered Frane. "I saw a flicker then. Yep! He's there! Right
below the edge of that stone!"

"I don't see anything but water. I can't even see the bottom," observed
Russ, in a low voice, too.

"Don't you see him below the stone?"

"I don't even see the stone," complained Russ.

"Hush! He'll hear you. I see his tail wiggle. He's a big cat."

"Now, don't tell me there's a cat in this brook!" said Russ Bunker,
shortly. "I know there isn't anything of the kind. Cats hate water."

He had already learned that Frane, Junior, was apt to exaggerate. Russ
thought the Armatage boy was letting his fancy run wild at this present
moment.

"It is a cat," murmured Frane. "I can see his whiskers moving. Yep, a
big fellow! Want to see?" and he took his eye away from the bark
cylinder.

"Can you see his teeth and his claws and his fur and his tail?" demanded
Russ scornfully, and without offering to take the cylinder. He did not
intend to be fooled so easily.

"What are you talking about?" hissed Frane. "And speak quietly. You'll
drive him away."

"Cats aren't so easily scared," said R