Phil Bradleys Mountain Boys | Page 3

It'll save us building one, you know, if it's in any kind of a decent condition," the tall boy went on to say.
"Yes, that's a fact," Phil himself remarked; "I've been thinking so right along. I only hope we won't find some fishermen camped in it. Kane said that once in a long while some guide took a party over to Surprise; but that the tramp was so hard few gentlemen cared to try for it. There are lakes all around that offer just about as good fishing."
"I should think there'd be some pretty fine hunting around up here," remarked Ethan. "I've noticed quite a few signs of deer, and that was certainly the track of a big moose we saw. I'd like to run across one of that stripe. Never saw a wild moose in all my life."
"I wouldn't be surprised if some of us do meet one while we roam the woods around the little lake," Phil told him. "If I'm that lucky I want to take a picture of the beast, to add to my collection."
"And I reckon, now," suggested X-Ray, "that nearly every night you'll be setting traps, not to catch wild animals, but to make them take their own pictures. That's the main reason why you've come up here, isn't it, Phil?"
"Well, you know it's a sort of hobby of mine, and I've got all the apparatus for taking flashlight pictures along with me. I started in to the business just to kill time; but let me tell you it grows on a fellow like everything. I'm something of a hunter myself, but this shooting with a camera beats anything else all hollow. Besides, you get your game, and yet don't injure it, which is the best of all."
Ethan laughed, and shook his head.
"But your pelts don't bring you in the hard cash, Phil, like mine do," he went on to say, with a touch of genuine pride in his voice. "S'pose now I'd just snapped off that black fox's picture instead of getting his paw in my steel Newhouse trap--it might have been all very well, but I'd be several hundred dollars shy right now."
X-Ray Tyson chuckled; but the other frowned and shook his head. It would never do to get Ethan's suspicions aroused. He was terribly persistent, and once on the scent would never give up until he had unearthed their clever little plot. Then good-by to peace among the Mountain Boys, for Ethan would never be apt to forgive them the deception.
"That's the main thing, after all, Ethan," Phil added. "One man's food is another man's poison. You enjoy your way of doing things, and I understand how that 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