, we aw ready!" said Herman. "Hoo! Hoo!"

"Wait a minute," Penrod interposed, frowningly surveying the cage. "I
got to squat too much to get my camera fixed right." He assumed various
solemn poses, to be interpreted as those of a photographer studying his
subject. "No," he said finally; "it won't take good that way."

"My gootness!" Herman exclaimed. "When we goin' begin 'at beatin'?"

"Here!" Apparently Penrod had solved a weighty problem. "Bring that
busted ole kitchen chair, and set the panther up on it. There! THAT'S
the ticket! This way, it'll make a mighty good pitcher!" He turned to
Sam importantly. "Well, Jim, is the chief and all his beaters here?"

"Yes, Bill; all here," Sam responded, with an air of loyalty.

"Well, then, I guess we're ready," said Penrod, in his deepest voice.
"Beat, men."

Herman and Verman were anxious to beat. They set up the loudest uproar
of which they were capable. "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" they bellowed, flailing
the branches with their spears and stamping heavily upon the floor.
Sam, carried away by the elan of the performance, was unable to resist
joining them. "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" he shouted. "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" And as the
dust rose from the floor to their stamping, the three of them produced
such a din and hoo-hooing as could be made by nothing on earth except
boys.

"Back, men!" Penrod called, raising his voice to the utmost. "Back for
your lives. The PA-A-ANTHER! Now I'm takin' his pitcher. Click, click!
Shoot, men; shoot!"

"Bing! Bing!" shouted Sam, levelling his gun at the cage, while Herman
and Verman hammered upon it, and Gipsy cursed boys, the world and the
day he was born. "Bing! Bing! Bing!"

"You missed him!" screamed Penrod. "Give me that gun!" And snatching it
from Sam's unwilling hand, he levelled it at the cage.

"BING!" he roared.

Simultaneously there was the sound of another report; but this was an
actual one and may best be symbolized by the statement that it was a
whack. The recipient was Herman, and, outrageously surprised and pained,
he turned to find himself face to face with a heavily built coloured
woman who had recently ascended the stairs and approached the
preoccupied hunters from the rear. In her hand was a lath, and, even as
Herman turned, it was again wielded, this time upon Verman.

"MAMMY!"

"Yes; you bettuh holler, 'Mammy!"' she panted. "My goo'ness, if yo'
pappy don' lam you to-night! Ain' you got no mo' sense 'an to let white
boys 'suede you pla