"Oh--we--we can't thank you enough!" gasped Alice. "The--the children--"
but her voice choked, and she could not speak.

"Wa'al, I reckon he _might_ have clawed 'em a bit," admitted the man with
the gun. "And perhaps it's jest as well I come along when I did. You
folks live around here? Don't seem like I've met you befo'."

"We're a company of moving picture actresses and actors," explained
Alice, while Ruth, making a detour to avoid the dead body of the animal,
went to Tommy and Nellie, who were still holding on to each other.

"Picture-players; eh?" mused the hunter, for such he evidently was. "I
seen a movin' picture once, and it looked as real as anything. Be you
folks on that steamer?"

"The _Magnolia_--yes," answered Alice, as her sister led the children up
to her.

"You're all right now, dearies," said Ruth. "The nice man killed the bad
bear."

"Excuse me, Miss; but that ain't a bear," said the hunter, with a pull at
his ragged cap that was meant for a bow. "It's a bobcat--mountain lion
some folks calls 'em--and I don't know as I ever saw one around this
neighborhood before. Mostly they're farther to the no'th. This must be a
stray one."

"Oh, but it might have killed us all if you had not been here," Ruth went
on.