"Well, I'd like to know what you want to keep it for," Sam said peevishly, and, with the suggestion of a sneer, he added, "I s'pose you think somebody'll pay about a hunderd dollars reward or something, on account of a cat!"
"I don't, either!" Penrod protested hotly. "I know what I'm doin', I tell you."
"Well, what on earth--"
"I'll tell you some day, won't I?" Penrod cried. "I got my reasons for wantin' to keep this cat, and I'm goin' to keep it.
YOU don't haf to ke--"
"Well, all right," Sam said shortly. "Anyways, it'll be dead if you don't hurry."
"It won't, either," Penrod returned, kneeling and peering down upon the dark water. "Listen to him! He's growlin' and spittin' away like anything! It takes a mighty fine-blooded cat to be as fierce as that. I bet you most cats would 'a' given up and drowned long ago. The water's awful cold, and I expect he was perty supprised when he lit in it."
"Herman's makin' a fuss again," Sam said. "We better get the ole cat out o' there if we're goin' to."
"Well, this is the way we'll do," Penrod said authoritatively:
"I'll let you hold the trousers, Sam. You lay down and keep hold of one leg, and let the other one hang down till its end is in the water. Then you kind of swish it around till it's somewheres where the cat can get hold of it, and soon as he does, you pull it up, and be mighty careful so's it don't fall off. Then I'll grab it and stick it in the box and slam the lid down."
Rather pleased to be assigned to the trousers, Sam accordingly extended himself at full length upon the slab and proceeded to carry out Penrod's instructions. Meanwhile, Penrod, peering from above, inquired anxiously for information concerning this work of rescue.
"Can you see it, Sam? Why don't it grab hold? What's it doin' now, Sam?"
"It's spittin' at Herman's trousers," said Sam. "My gracious, but it's a fierce cat! If it's mad all the time like this, you better not ever try to pet it much. Now it's kind o' sniffin' at the trousers. It acks to me as if it was goin' to ketch hold. Yes, it's stuck one claw in 'em--OW!"
Sam uttered a blood-curdling shriek and jerked convulsively. The next instant, streaming and inconceivably gaunt, the ravening Gipsy appeared with a final bound upon Sam's shoulder. It was not in Gipsy's character to be drawn up peaceably; he had ascended the trousers and Sam's arm without assistance and in his own way.
Simultaneously--for this was a notable case of everything happening at once--there was a muffled, soggy splash, and the unfortunate Herman, smit with prophecy in his seclusion, uttered a dismal yell. Penrod laid hands upon Gipsy, and, after a struggle suggestive of sailors landing a man-eating shark, succeeded in getting him into the box, and sat upon the lid thereof.
Sam had leaped to his feet, empty handed and vociferous.
"Ow ow, OUCH!" he shouted, as he rubbed his suffering arm and shoulder. Then, exasperated by Herman's lamentations, he called angrily: "Oh, what _I_ care for your ole britches? I guess if you'd 'a' had a cat climb up YOU, you'd 'a' dropped 'em a hunderd times over!"
However, upon excruciating entreaty, he consented to explore the surface of the water with a clothes-prop, but reported that the luckless trousers had disappeared in the depths, Herman having forgotten to remove some "fishin' sinkers" from his pockets before making the fated loan.
Penrod was soothing a lacerated wrist in his mouth.
"That's a mighty fine-blooded cat," he remarked. "I expect it'd got away from pretty near anybody, 'specially if they didn't know much about cats. Listen at him, in the box, Sam. I bet you never heard a cat growl as loud as that in your life. I shouldn't wonder it was part panther or sumpthing."
Sam began to feel more interest and less resentment.
"I tell you what we can do, Penrod," he said: "Let's take it in the stable and make the box into a cage. We can take off the hinges and slide back the lid a little at a time, and nail some o' those laths over the front for bars."
"That's just exackly what I was goin' to say!" Penrod exclaimed.
"I already thought o' that, Sam. Yessir, we'll make it just like a reg'lar circus-cage, and our good ole cat can look out from between the bars and growl. It'll come in pretty handy if we ever decide to have another show. Anyways, we'll have her in there, good and tight, where we can watch she don't get away. I got a mighty good reason to keep this cat, Sam. You'll see."
