"A polecat!" gasped Steve. "Thunder! What a nice mess we're in."
"That's just what," echoed Bandy-legs. "It's half an hour now since Uncle Jim sighted the striped beast through the window. He was a-settin' on the table then, and having a spread all by himself. Then, of course, after that he gets sleepy, and I just bet you right now he's curled up as nice as you please in the very bunk I expected to occupy to-night. Just my luck!"
"But we ought to get rid of him," said Max, hardly knowing whether to laugh or feel provoked, for he was very tired and hungry and did not enjoy the prospect of sleeping out-of-doors without even a solitary blanket, while that saucy little beast retained possession of the whole cabin.
"We've been waiting and watching and hoping this half hour and more," said Owen, with a rather forlorn smile; "but still he doesn't come out of the window where he must have gone in."
"H-h-he likes it in t-t-there. Most c-c-comfortable place he ever s-s-struck," Toby remarked.
"Where were the dogs when he went in?" Max asked.
"Off with us," replied Owen.
"We got back an hour before noon," Trapper Jim remarked. "After lunch we hung around for a while and I fixed all the pelts we brought in."
"Any mink?" asked Steve, eagerly.
"Yes, one good pelt," answered Jim. "Then, about the middle of the afternoon I said we might take a little range around on our own hook and set the bear trap in the bargain, for the old chap had been along the trail to the marsh again."
"Bully!" exclaimed Steve, who was hard to keep quiet.
"We tied the dogs some little distance away from where we meant to set our bear trap, because they'd want to follow the trail and spoil everything," Uncle Jim went on.
"And we helped him set her, too," remarked Bandy-legs, proudly.
"Yes, if we get a bear, it'll be partly yours, boys," the trapper went on to say. "After that part of the business had been carried out we started on our hunt. But to tell you the truth, boys, we never saw a thing worth shooting."
Max suspected that Toby and Bandy-legs made so much noise floundering through the dry leaves that they gave every squirrel and rabbit plenty of warning, so that they could make themselves scarce long before the expedition came along.
But if this was the truth Trapper Jim would not say so. What were a few rabbits or squirrels in comparison with the company of these jolly, interesting boys? The game he had with him all the time, but not so Owen, Toby, and Bandy-legs.
"Then we came home again," said Owen, taking up the story; "and it was by the greatest luck ever that Uncle Jim just happened to look in at the open window and discovered the skunk. Just think what might have happened if we'd burst in on the little beast and scared it!"
"And me with only one suit, which is bad enough as it is, having holes burned in it, without having to bury the same," Bandy-legs remarked.
"Oh," said Steve, "you wouldn't have felt it much, for p'r'aps we'd have buried you with your clothes. But, however, are we going to coax him out of there, boys?"
"I move Steve be appointed a committee of one to go and ask our friend the skunk to vacate the ranch," said Owen.
"A good idea," added Max. "Steve, he's got a most convincing way with animals. They take to him on sight."
"Yes, that five-pronged buck did, you're right, Max," admitted the candidate for fresh honors. "But I draw the line on skunks."
"They ain't got a line; Uncle Jim says it's a stripe," vociferated Bandy-legs.
"But the day's nearly done and we've got to do something about it," remarked Trapper Jim. "Can't one of you think up a way? He acts like he meant to stay in there as long as the feed holds out."
"Perhaps he's heard the dogs," suggested Owen. "We've got them tied up close by, and every little while one gives a yelp."
"They seem to just know there's something up," declared Bandy-legs.
"S-s-sure t-t-thing," added Toby, seriously.
"Max, haven't you got a plan?" asked the owner of the cabin, turning toward the other eagerly, as though he guessed that if they found help at all it would be in this quarter.
"I was just thinking of something," replied the boy, smiling.
"Yes, go on," Trapper Jim continued.
"We couldn't coax him out, and if we tried to frighten the little rascal it'd be all day with our staying in that cabin again while we boys are up here. But perhaps he might be made to feel so unpleasant in there that he'd be glad to move off."
"Good for you, Max; I can see you've got an idea," cried out Jim, approvingly.
"I don't think skunks like smoke any more than any other wild animals!" Max ventured.
"Smoke!" ejaculated Steve. "Hallelujah! Max has caught on to a bully good idea. Let's smoke the little beggar out. Everyone get busy now."
"Hold on," said Trapper Jim, catching Steve by the sleeve again; "go slow."
"Yes, go mighty slow," complained Bandy-legs. "You know well enough, Steve Dowdy, that I can't smoke at all. There's no use of my trying, because it makes me awful sick every time."
"Listen to that, would you!" laughed Steve. "The simple believes we're all going to get pipes and blow the smoke through some chinks in the cabin walls. Cheer up, old fellow, it ain't quite as bad as that."
"When we've got some stuff that will burn," continued Max, "I'll climb up on the roof, set fire to it, and drop it down the chimney. Then after it gets a good start I'll follow it with some weeds Uncle Jim will gather, and which he knows must send out a dense smoke after I've clapped a board over the top of the chimney flue."
"Bravo!" cried Owen, so loud that the chained dogs near by started barking.
"A very original scheme," said Trapper Jim, patting Max on the back. "And the sooner we start in to try how it works, the better."
"I've got only one objection," Steve spoke up.
"Well, let's hear it," demanded Owen, frowning.
"I think Max ought to let Bandy-legs run that part of the business," Steve went on to say, "he knows more about chimneys than all the rest of the push put together. He's examined 'em from top to bottom inside."
"Oh, rats!" mocked the one upon whose unwilling head all these high honors were being heaped.
"I object," spoke up Toby, bound to have his say. "B-b-bandy-legs never c-c-could resist the t-t-temp-tation to d-d-drop in himself. And think what'd h-h-happen if the s-s-skunk saw him comin' out of the f-f-fireplace a-whoopin'."
"Let's get the stuff to burn, lads," said Trapper Jim, who certainly enjoyed hearing the boys chaff each other in this way. "And everybody keep away from that side of the house where the window stands open."
They were not long in finding what they wanted.
"Make this up in a little bundle, boys, so I can drop it down quick after I've set a match to it," and Max gathered the dry stuff together as he spoke, waiting for one of the rest to tie it with a cord.
"And this other I'd drop down loose like," said Trapper Jim, as he held up the bunch of half-dead weeds he had collected. "These give out the blackest smoke you ever saw, and if you shut off the draft after they get going good and hard, nothing living could stay long in that cabin."
"That's the ticket!" remarked Steve, enthusiastically.
He certainly did enjoy action more than any one of the chums. Steve was happy only when there was "something doing," even though the source of excitement lay in a miserable little highly scented skunk that had taken a liking to Jim's cozy cabin and seemed ready to remain there indefinitely.
So they adjourned to the rear of the little squatty structure. Everybody took great care to keep away from the one open window. Some of the boys had had little or no experience with the species of friendly animal now occupying their quarters. Still, it was strange how great a respect for his feelings they entertained. Why, no fellow seemed to want to even be seen looking rudely in.
Max readily climbed upon the roof.
He purposely made considerable noise while so doing, and for good reasons. It was just as well that the inmate of Jim's cabin knew they were around and objected to his remaining there.
And then, again, Max had a little fear lest the skunk make a sudden appearance, popping out of the chimney before he could really get busy. That event, should it take place, would likely enough upset all his well-planned calculations.
Max under such conditions would wisely seek safety in flight. Indeed, he had already picked out the very place where he could jump from the roof of the cabin and make sure of landing in a soft spot.
As soon as he reached the roof he hurried over to the chimney, intending to start operations by dropping something down.
"I ought to notify the little rascal that the flue is marked dangerous," Max was saying to himself, "so that if he's started up he can just back down again."
Fortunately nothing happened, and Max was not compelled to take that sudden flying leap.
The chimney, as is the case with all log cabins, was built on the outside. It was composed of slabs of wood, secured with a mortar made principally of certain mud.
In process of time this became thoroughly baked, and the heat assisted in this transformation. It was now as hard as flint rock.
That the flue was a generous one we already know. Had that not been the case Bandy-legs could never have fallen down through it to land in the fireplace below.
Max had counted on this fact.
Having notified the intruder to keep away from the fireplace under penalty of getting hurt, and feeling that the way was now open to undertake the carrying out of his little scheme, Max returned to the point where he had reached the roof.
The others had seen to it that the balance of his dry stuff was placed where he could lay hands on the same. So Max by degrees dumped all this down after the first lot.
"Now to set it going," he remarked.
"You seem to be having a bully old time up there all by your lonely," said Steve, half enviously.
"Oh, I'm a cheerful worker," Max replied.
He had arranged some of the best of the stuff so that after applying a match he could send it down upon the top of all that had gone before.
"How is it?" asked Trapper Jim, who was standing on something or other, so that his head came above the low, almost flat roof.
"It's burning all right; I can see it taking hold," came the reply from Max, who had been cautiously peering down the gaping chimney.
"Then take this stuff and follow suit," remarked the other, handing up the armful of weeds he had himself gathered.
"Hurry up about it, too, Max," sang out Steve. "We want the show to begin. It's cold down here, believe me."
"Oh, it'll be warm enough," declared the owner of the cabin, "if that onary little beast turns this way after he crawls out of the window. And I'll advise you all to give him plenty of room."
"We will, thank you," the others sang out in a chorus. "Oh, you skunk, we like you—at a distance! Go ahead, Max, fix him!"
Having dropped the weeds Jim had selected down the flue, Max only waited until the black smoke began to pour out.
Then he quickly clapped a board Jim happened to own over the top.
"That ends my part of the work here," he called out, crawling over to the side of the cabin where he could have an unobstructed view.
Heads appeared around the corners of the structure, but no soul was venturesome enough to dare show himself in plain view.
And so they waited to see what the result of the bright plan would be. Already smoke was oozing out of the opening on the side, and it did not seem possible that anything but a salamander could stand the stifling fumes much longer.
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