hat is, for I'm something of a hunter of small game
myself; but I find more real delight in surprising a keen-nosed fox, or
a night-roaming raccoon, and getting his photo than in blowing them over
with a charge of shot."

"Think there could be any bear up around here, Phil?" asked Lub, over
his shoulder.

"I wouldn't be surprised, and if we run across tracks I'll add to my
collection."

"Mebbe we ought to have fetched a gun along," suggested X-Ray, who was
not much of a hunter himself, though fond of any kind of game when it
was cooked at a camp-fire.

"Well, that would have brought us into trouble with the game wardens,"
Phil replied.

At this point they were interrupted by a cry from Lub, who was on his
hands and knees in the midst of the scrub, where he had evidently caught
his foot in a vine, and gone sprawling down on account of his
clumsiness.

High above the exclamation from the lips of their fat companion they
could hear a fierce growling sound, and about ten feet beyond Lub they
saw the crouching body of a very large and angry bobcat, with blazing
yellow eyes, and every hair on its back standing up on edge, as it got
ready to spring.

CHAPTER II

LUB, AND THE MOTHER BOBCAT

"Keep still, everybody!" said Phil, grasping the perilous situation
instantly.

"Gee whiz! look at its eyes staring, will you?" gasped X-Ray, appalled
by the ferocious aspect of the crouching beast, which was squatted on a
log just a few paces beyond poor kneeling and terrorized Lub.

"Phil, oh! Phil, tell me what I ought to do!" they heard the fat chum
saying in rather a faint voice; all the while doubtless keeping his
strained eyes glued on that dreadful apparition.

"It's a mother wildcat, and she's got kits somewhere near by," Phil was
saying steadily. "That's what makes her so fierce in the daytime. Lub,
can you hear me plainly?"

He did not elevate his voice in the least, not wishing to do anything
out of the ordinary so as to excite the angry beast further, and cause
it to jump.

"Yes, sure I can; go on and tell me, Phil," whined the other,
appealingly, and remaining on his hands and knees as though absolutely
incapable of moving.

"Don't be alarmed," Phil went on to say. "I've got my revolver in my
hand, and if it comes to the worst I'll shoot. The other boys will yell
like everything, too, and that might make her sheer off. But first try
and back up, just as you are. Careful now, and do it as easy as yo