First I thought I’d go over and touch him to see how he felt, but I just didn’t dare to. I was scared of him even then. So I just started off along the path, going scout pace, and when I got a little way off so I _knew_ I was safe, I looked back and said, “You stay where you are and don’t get excited, and I’ll fix it for you.”
Because anyway, I hadn’t done my good turn yet and it was pretty near dark.
The fellows were just thinking about sending a couple of scouts to hunt for me when I went running pell-mell into camp, shouting that I had captured a leopard.
“A leopard,” I shouted, “as sure as I stand here. Come and see for yourselves. He’s tied by a rope; he’s got fly paper all over him!”
“How many sodas did you have?” Harry Donnelle asked me.
I said, “That’s all right, you just come and see. It’s a leopard; you can see it for yourself.”
Harry said, “Sit down, Kiddo, and rest and have a cup of coffee. Guess you fell asleep by the wayside, hey? Tell us all about your dream. Here’s a plate of beans. Did you see any mermaids?”
“Never you mind about beans and mermaids,” I told him; “one man told me already that they were cow tracks I saw. I guess he wouldn’t want to go through what I’ve been through since then. The animal had five toes on his fore feet and four on his hind feet—that’s a leopard, I’m pretty sure. Anyway, he’s got spots. You come and see.”
“You don’t think it could have been a spotted calf, do you, Kid?” Harry said in that nice easy way he has of jollying. “I don’t know much about calves’ toes, but I’ve eaten calves’ feet.”
Even after I had told them all about it, they all said I must have been seeing things and that probably the animal was a raccoon or maybe _possibly_ a wildcat. Anyway, Harry Donnelle said they’d all go back with me to the place, because they thought maybe we’d get in trouble on account of plastering some honest, hard working calf with fly paper. But just the same he took his rifle, I noticed that. I carried the lantern.
All the way through the woods they were jollying me and calling me _Roy the Leopard Killer_, and Harry Donnelle said I must have been carried off on the magic carpet to India, just like the people in the Arabian Nights. All the while I didn’t say anything and when we came to the tree and the spring house, I went ahead and saw that the animal was lying close to the tree, as if he were asleep. I guess he was all exhausted. The rope was fast around his body just behind his fore legs where it couldn’t choke him and where he couldn’t get free of it. He started up when I went near him, but didn’t seem to get excited.