Jack was startled: in place of the anticipated triumph of going home in dry garments, here was a chance of his going home in no garments at all! Yet who could have taken them? how was it possible that they could have been removed during his brief absence? “Maybe this isn’t the log!” He looked around. “Yes, it is, though!”
No other fallen trunk at all resembling it was to be seen in the woods. Then he stooped again, and thrust his hand as far as he could into the opening. He touched something,—not what he sought, but a mass of hair, and the leg of some large animal. He recoiled instinctively, with—it must be confessed—a start of fear.
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JACK’S first thought was, that the creature, whatever it might be, was in the log when he placed his clothes there, and that it had afterwards seized them and perhaps torn them to pieces. Then he reflected that the hair he touched felt wet; and he said, “The thing ran to its hole after I put the clothes in, and it has pushed ’em along farther into the log. Wonder what it can be!” It was evidently much too large for a raccoon or a woodchuck: could it be a panther? or a young bear? “He’s got my clothes, any way! I must get him out, or go home without ’em!”
Naked and weaponless as he was, he naturally shrank from attacking the strange beast; nor was it pleasant to think of going home in his present condition. It was not at all probable that Mr. Pipkin and Phin would return to their work that afternoon; and he was too far from the house to make his cries for help heard. He resolved to call, however.
“Maybe I can make Lion hear. I wonder if he went home.” He remembered that the frightened dog was last seen crouching with Phin beside the rock, and hoping he was there still, he began to call.
“Lion! here, Lion!” and, putting his fingers to his mouth, he whistled till all the woods rang. Then suddenly—for he watched the log all the while—he heard a tearing and rattling in the cavity, and saw that the beast was coming out. Stepping quickly backwards, he tripped over a stick; and the next moment the creature—big and shaggy and wet—was upon him.
“You rogue! you coward! old Lion! what a fright you gave me! what have you done with my clothes? you foolish boy’s dog!” For the beast was no other than Lion himself; frightened from his retreat beside the boulder, he had followed his young master to the woods, and crept into the hollow of the log, after Jack had left his clothes in it.