“I'm all right; how's it with you, sir? And--Bruno?” “Without a scratch to remember it by,” promptly asserted the elder brother, likewise regaining his feet and taking hasty account of stock. “No fault of his, though!” giving that carcass a kick as he spoke. “My gracious! I caught just one glimpse of them, and I was ready to make affidavit that each fang would measure a foot, while his claws--” “Would pass through an elephant and clinch on the other side,” declared Waldo, stooping far enough to lift one of those armed paws. “But, I say, Bruno, how awfully they have shrunk, since then!” Whether so intended or not, this characteristic break caused a mutual laugh, and, as there was neither sound nor sign of further danger from like source, one and all satisfied their curiosity by minutely inspecting the huge brute, stirring up the fire for that purpose. “An ugly customer, indeed, if we had given him anything like a fair show,” gravely uttered the professor. “Only for your prompt assistance, my dear boys, what would have become of poor me?” “We acted on our own account, as well, please remember, uncle. And even so, after all you have done for us since--” “What was it you shot at, uncle Phaeton?” interrupted Waldo, who was constitutionally averse to aught which savoured of sentiment. “Another one of these--little squirrels, was it?” Snatching up a blazing brand, the lad moved off in that direction, whirling the torch around his head until it burst into clear flame, then lowering it closer to a bloody heap of fur and powerful limbs, to give a short ejaculation of wondering awe. It was a headless body upon which he gazed, ragged fragments of skin and a few splinters of bone alone remaining to tell that a solid skull had so recently been thereon. Professor Phaeton gave another of his peculiar little chuckles, as he drew near, then patted the compact little rifle with which he had wrought such extraordinary work: a weapon of his own invention, as were the dynamite-filled shells to match. “Although I am rather puny myself, boys, with this neat little contrivance I could fairly well hold my own against man or beast,” he modestly averred. “A modern David,” gravely added Bruno, while Waldo chimed in with: “What a dandy Jack the Giant-killer you would have been, uncle Phaeton, if you had only lived in the good old days! I wish--and yet I don't, either! Of course, it might have been jolly old sport right then, but now,--where'd I be, to-day?” “A day on which has happened a miracle far more marvellous than all that has been set down in fairyland romance, my dear son,” earnestly spoke the professor. “And when the astounding truth shall have been published, broadcast, throughout all Christendom, what praises--” “How thoroughly we shall be branded liars, and falsificationers from 'way up the crick'!” exploded the youngster, making a wry grimace and moving on to view the headless lion from a different standpoint.