that?" he asked.

"Granite," said Wilbur immediately.

"An' you took them out o' the water?"

"Yes," answered the boy.

"An' what happens when you build a fire between granite stones?"

"I don't know, Rifle-Eye. What does?"

"They explode sometimes, leastways, when they're wet inside. Don't
forget that," he added as he put the stones aside. "Now," he continued,
"go down to the spring an' fill this pot with water, an' I'll have a
fire goin' an' some grub sizzlin' by the time you get back. The spring
is about two hundred feet downstream and about twenty feet above the
water. You can't miss it."

Wilbur took the aluminum pot and started for the spring. He had not gone
half the distance when he noted a stout crotched stick such as he had
been used to getting when he camped out in the middle West for the
purpose of hanging the cooking utensils on over the fire. So he picked
it up and carried it along with him. Presently the gurgling of water
told him that he was nearing the spring, and a moment later he saw the
clearing through the trees. But, suddenly, a low snarling met his ears,
and he halted dead at the edge of the clearing.

There, before him, on the ground immediately beside the spring, crouched
a large wild-cat, the hairy tips of her ears twitching nervously. Under
her claws was a rabbit, evidently just caught, into which the wild-cat
had just sunk her teeth when the approach of the boy was heard. At first
Wilbur could not understand why she had not sprung into the woods with
her prey at the first distant twig-snapping which would betoken his
approach. But as he looked more closely he saw that this was precisely
what the cat had tried to do, but that in the jerk the rabbit had been
caught and partly impaled on a tree root that projected above the
ground, and for the moment the cat could not budge it.

Wilbur was utterly at a loss to know what to do. He had been told that
wild-cats would never attack any one unless they had been provoked to
fight, and he found himself very unwilling to provoke this particular
specimen. The cat stood still, her eyes narrowed to mere slits, the ears
slightly moving, and the tip of the tail flicking from side to side in
quick, angry jerks. There was menace in every line of the wild-cat's
pose.

The boy had his revolver with him, but while he had occasionally fired a
six-shooter, he was by no means a crack shot, and he realized that if he
fired at and only wounded the creature