ke a meal for that cold night. And
another thing gave Bumpus great uneasiness; there was no use of trying
to get away from this army of "yellow-eyes" by climbing that hemlock;
since cats were as much at home in any kind of tree as on the ground.

No wonder Bumpus shivered now, with something more than the cold air.
They were certainly up against it, good and hard; and if ever they saw
Thad and the rest of the scouts again, how happy they should be.

Why didn't Giraffe quit his fooling with that silly old bow, and take to
thinking up some scheme that was worth while? It seemed the height of
foolishness for him to be wasting all his time with that ridiculous
fire-making dodge, that never could be done anyway. Bumpus was almost
tempted to stumble forward, and pretend to fall over his kneeling
figure, just to upset things, and make Giraffe come to his proper
senses. He would, only he was a little afraid that the tall scout might
be so furious that he would do something violent; for he was getting
"awful touchy" on the subject of making a fire in that way.

"If I could only make dead sure of one of them yellow eyes, I'd like to
knock the beast over," Bumpus was muttering to himself; and then he
rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, as if trying to see better, after
which he said disconsolately: "It ain't no use, they just keep dancin'
all around me. P'raps there ain't any cats there at all. P'raps I'm just
imaginin' things, like my dad used to say I did, when they put me to bed
in the dark, tellin' me the angels was all around me, an' wouldn't let
anything hurt me; but pretty soon, when the skeeters got busy, I let out
a whoop, and told 'em the angels was bitin' me something awful. P'raps
if I shut my eyes I'd feel better."

But when he started to try this, Bumpus found that it would not work.
The agony of not being able to see created new fancies in his mind, much
more dreadful than those that had gone before.

And so the anxious scout crouched there, not far from his industrious
chum, gripping his gun tightly in both hands, and breathing stertorously
as he twisted his fat neck around from side to side. He was trying to
figure out a line of action to be followed in case the worst came to
pass; and be it said to his credit that Bumpus was resolved to die game,
as became a true scout.

At any rate, Giraffe could not keep up that silly business much longer.
Either he would just have to give over through complete exhaustion;