rest assured that by the time all three boys had given their separate version of the encounter, Amos was fully posted regarding every detail possible.

“You came out of it in prime shape, Perk,” he said, heartily; “but luck was on your side. If you’d happened to be a foot closer, there might have been a far different story to tell; and a heap anxious lot of fellows up here at Old Cabin Bend. I’ve known of chaps who were struck by a rattler, and died in spite of being dosed with whisky, and such things, under the idea that one poison can counteract another. For myself I like to give snakes a wide berth. I’ll step out of the trail every time to let one hold possession.”

“It’s really the safest plan,” assented Elmer.

“But that isn’t just all my news, boys,” continued the ardent photographer. “Down under the river bank I found a heap of little tracks, mink footprints for a certainty, showing that one old chap roams around there, anyway. And to-night, Elmer, I’d like to have you help me set my camera trap, hoping to coax Mr. Mink to sit for his own picture.”

“You can count on me in anything you ask, Amos,” he was told most heartily as the roofers again got busy with their pounding.

After they had partaken of a light lunch, meaning to have the big meal of the day come at evening, when their tasks would all be finished, they lay around resting and dozing, for it had become quite warm.

Perk, however, showed signs of continued nervousness. Perhaps he had received a greater shock during his encounter with the rattler than he cared to admit; then again the suspicion that an escaped lunatic was hovering around, and trying to spy upon them, was in itself quite enough to make him uneasy.

He got up, and threw himself down again as many as half a dozen times, considerably to the amusement of Wee Willie, who was slyly watching him. Finally Perk found a seat on a convenient log, and sat there, staring away toward a little uplift of land that might be called a forest knoll, where the trees stood up far above the balance of the timber.

Wee Willie, watching, saw the fat chum suddenly start, and bending forward stare very hard at something. His features were working, too, as though Perk might be laboring under a fresh spasm of excitement.

“Well, I just expected it’d happen!” Wee Willie heard him mutter.

“What happened, Perk?” 

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