By now he was acting just like a cat having a fit and howling like mad. I guess he couldn’t see at all, because he went, kerplunk, up against a tree and then rolled away and went banging against the spring house. He had two sheets on his face and another one on his paw and the whole front of him was all mucked up with gum and the grass and dirt were sticking to him. Believe me, he was a sight. He didn’t look much like a lord of the jungle; he looked more as if he was on his way home from the hospital. You can talk about tanks and machine guns and poison gas and hand grenades, and all the other new fangled weapons, but tanglefoot for mine; that’s what _I_ say. If the Allies had used tanglefoot, the war would have been over three years ago. And if they had spread it all along the banks of the Marne, the Germans would never have gotten across, that’s one sure thing. CHAPTER X I MAKE A PROMISE Honestly, inside of five minutes that wild animal was a wreck. Every time he tried to claw the paper from his head he howled, because it pulled his hair and hurt him. I don’t say I was glad to sit up there and watch him, because there isn’t much fun in seeing animals suffer. Maybe he wasn’t suffering, but anyway, he was half crazy. But how about me? Safety first. Pretty soon he kind of half rolled and half staggered over against the trunk of my tree and I knew he couldn’t see at all. Then he lay there with his back up against it trying to rub the sheet off his back, and all the while he kept pawing his head and making it worse for himself. I guess even if he had gotten the paper off, he’d still be blind, because the gum would keep his eyes shut. By that time I knew I was safe, because he was even more helpless than he would have been if I had shot him and not killed him. It was mostly because he couldn’t see, and that got him rattled, and you’re no good when you’re rattled. All I wanted was for him to get away from the tree so I wouldn’t have to be too near him, and then I’d shinny down and hit the trail for camp. But just then I had another thought. Maybe you won’t believe me, but I felt sorry for that wild animal. I knew how _I’d_ feel if I was in such a fix as that. If I had only had a pistol I would have shot him, but boy scouts don’t carry pistols—only in crazy story books. We never shoot anything, except the chutes in Coney Island, and you can’t call that cruelty to animals.