“Yes, you would!” declared Bluff, confidently. “Always thought you was timid-like, William, because you never blew your horn about what you’d do; but sure, I’ve changed my mind; and now I reckon you’ve got more real spunk than anyone in the whole bunch.”
“Just what I meant to say, Bluff,” remarked Frank.
“And my sentiments to a hair,” Jerry added.
“I’ve seen some instances of bravery in my time, but few that could equal the way he attacked that angry wildcat, and sent it over the rail,” Luther Snow said, with sincerity in his voice.
“But, Will, I hope the beast didn’t scratch you anywhere,” Frank went on; “for you know it’s sometimes a dangerous thing to be wounded by the claws of any wild beast that lives on animal food. Lots of hunters have died from blood poisoning, even when they thought the scratches hardly worth washing, they were so small.”
“He never touched me, Frank, that I know of; and I can’t see a sign of a scratch anywhere on my hands,” Will replied, proudly.
“And there don’t seem to be any on your neck or face,” Jerry declared, after an examination. “But, Frank, if there had been, would you have used that purple stuff you carry in that little bottle, tightly corked, and labeled ‘poison’?”
“Just what it’s for,” came the reply, “and it disinfects any sort of wound that seems suspicious. The only trouble is, that it leaves a dark stain on the flesh for some days. It’s permanganate of potash, and any druggist will put it up if he’s told what it’s for. But when one’s life may pay the forfeit, what does a little pain, or stain, amount to?”
“You are quite right, my boy,” remarked Luther Snow. “I’ve carried a small phial of that same stuff thousands of miles, over African trails, and through the better part of India. And if I’ve used it once, I suppose I have fifty times; for myself or some gun bearer who was clawed by a lion or tiger.”
Again did Frank have that deep conviction that there was something strange about this Luther Snow, as he called himself. How a poor carpenter, who had never had a dollar he did not earn himself, could spend years in hunting just for pleasure, all over Asia and Africa, bothered him. But some day he expected to know what the key could be to this riddle.