ered yet longer, resting over his paddle and entertaining
his companion with talk and stories and the singing of songs. Hardly
noticed by Rube, he dipped the paddle and gradually turned the canoe
round and round.

"Rube, old man," he said at length, "I've made up another scouting task
for you. Find our landing place. Take us straight into it. You can't
see it in this darkness, I know. You dunno where 'tis; but you've got
ter navigate us into it, and without my help, see?"

Rube was not to be caught napping. He took the paddle in hand, looked
up to the stars, and made for home as truly and unerringly as even
Kiddie himself could have done.

The air was hot that night, and Kiddie again preferred to sleep in the
open. And he slept very soundly.

Rube, on the contrary, found the teepee stifling, in spite of the
wide-open door flap. He was restless; the mosquitoes tormented him,
too. He began to envy Kiddie, lying in the cooler air. So much so
that at about two o'clock in the morning ho got free of his sleeping
bag, took his revolver, and crept out into the bright moonlight.

Kiddie lay flat on his back under a cotton-wood tree, his arms folded
across his chest, shielding his hidden eyes from the silvery light of
the moon.

Rube's foot kicked against an unseen pannikin, making an alarming
clatter.

He looked to see if Kiddie stirred, and saw instead a movement in the
tree. The branch just above Kiddie's head was swaying and a strange
black body showed itself ominously through the trembling leaves.

Rube leant forward and became aware of a pair of large, shining, yellow
eyes. Beneath them, farther back, a long, curved tail was swinging to
and fro like a pendulum. The eyes were far apart, showing that the
animal which owned them was of great size--bigger, certainly, than an
ordinary lynx.

Rube raised his gun, deciding to shoot the beast between the eyes. But
before he could take aim there was a sudden quick movement in Kiddie's
sleeping-place, a sharp flash, and a loud report that was mingled with
a fierce howl and a heavy thud.

Kiddie had leapt to his feet and was ready to fire a second shot at the
beast that was writhing and snarling at his feet.

"Keep back, Rube," he said calmly. "He ain't dead yet. But I've got
him. It's that black puma that came t' th' trap last night."

From where Rube Carter stood, Kiddie and the wounded puma seemed to be
hopelessly mixed up together in the darkness.