“Suppose we should meet some more,” Hunt Manners said, just as he and Westy were starting along the path.
“Take some fly paper with you,” I said, “and think of your brave patrol leader.”
“You won’t meet any more,” Harry Donnelle said; “this fellow must have strayed down out of the mountains. There is a species of leopard found in America, but I never knew they grew to such a size as this, or had spots either. Trot along and get back as soon as you can.”
While the two fellows were gone, Harry tied the leopard’s fore feet and then his hind feet together with rope. He wound it around good and plenty and tied it fast, you can bet, and then we just sat around waiting.
Pretty soon along came the whole village, postmaster and all, and Hunt and Westy with a wheelbarrow. Some escort! You’d think Westy and Hunt were General Pershing getting home from France. I should think they would have been afraid someone would steal the village while they were gone. Because you know yourself that there are lots of robberies and hold-ups and thefts and things since the war.
I was sitting up on a branch of a tree when they came along and I heard the postmaster saying that Cy Berry had lost his heifer and he guessed maybe now it was found.
I shouted, “You have one more guess. I think the leopard ate his heifer; he was terribly hungry.”
Well, you should have heard them as soon as they had a look at the animal. One of them said, “I haint seed no leo-pods around these parts—_neverrr_. And I been livin’ here nigh on to forty year.”
Harry Donnelle said, “Well, the animal is a leopard just the same. Either you’ve been staying home most of the time or else he has.” I had to laugh, it was so funny the way he said it.
Another one said, “There be’nt no leopards in the Catskills, that’s sartin.”
“Well, maybe he was just spending the summer here then,” Harry said; “but here he is, anyway, and I’d like to get him away from here.”
“Yer be’nt goin’ ter try to keep him, be yer?” the man asked.
Harry said, “Yes, I’m just that reckless. I think he’s worth more alive than dead, if I can spruce him up a bit.”
“Ye’ll get yer hand bit off,” one of the men said.
Then Harry said that all he wanted was a place to put the animal till morning, and he’d see if he couldn’t get some kind of medicine to dope him with, while he tried to get the fly paper off. I guess they didn’t like the idea very much, but one of the men whose name was Hasbrook, said we could put the leopard in his barn till morning if we wanted to. So they got him into the wheelbarrow and it wasn’t hard doing it on account of his legs being tied. Then we all started back to the village.