"Hold up your hands, you there in the bushes, and step right up to the fire, or I'll shoot; and, let me tell you, this gun goes straight! Lively now, Mister, and no foolishness! Oh! Ned! come here, will you? We've got a visitor!" CHAPTER VIII. AN UNWELCOME GUEST. When Ned started toward the spot where he knew Jack was on guard, he could hear Harry groping for his rifle, and this told him the other would also be close on his heels. Harry, finding that Jimmy still slumbered peacefully, managed to give him a severe poke in the ribs as he passed that had an immediate effect. "Here, who's doin' that now?" broke from Jimmy's lips, and then, no doubt, he suddenly realized that there was something up, for he saw Ned poking the fire, holding his gun in the other hand, and Harry also standing erect, armed in the same manner. Accordingly, Jimmy made haste to discover his gun and follow after them. In the meantime, the dusky figure among the bushes which Jack was covering had stood erect and started to advance toward the fire, as ordered, holding his hands high above his head. "It's Harkness!" cried out the kid puncher, who had been on his feet about as soon as Ned; and, somehow, no one was much surprised at the information thus conveyed. Ned saw that Harkness was just about such a looking man as one might picture if asked to describe a wolf-raiser. He had grayish hair and a scraggy beard; his face was ugly, and his eyes, like those of a rat for keenness and audacity. Taken in all, he was as tough looking a character as the scouts had run across in many a day. "Wot d'ye mean a holdin' a man up thisaway, when he jest natrally draps in to arsk who killed them pets o' his'n?" the wolf-herder blurted out, though careful not to take his hands down, for he knew that Jack was still covering him with that dangerous looking repeating rifle, and there was an air of business about the weapon that warned him not to get careless. "Oh! you can lower your hands now, if you want," Jack sang out, "because we're all on deck and could riddle your hide with lead if you tried to use your gun. So just take things easy now, Mr. Harkness, if that's your name." "It air!" growled the man, staring hard at each boy in turn, as though he did not know what to make of their khaki uniforms and was a little afraid he had run up against a detachment of United States regulars. "And I reckon then that all these dead wolves belonged to you?" Ned went on to remark, as he swept his hand around. The man said something hard under his breath. "Ye gone an' busted up my bizness, thet's wot ye done, w'en ye laid out tuh kill the animiles!" he complained, as he gritted his yellow teeth very much as one of the wounded wolves had done at Ned's approach.