"He's coming!" called out Max from above.

"Take care, everybody!" cried Trapper Jim.

In one way it was laughable to see the tremendous excitement caused by the small striped animal with the bushy tail. The skunk emerged from the window in something of haste. Reaching the ground it seemed to cast one look backward, as though either feeling provoked at being forced to vacate such nice quarters, or else wondering what all that rank odor of smoldering weeds meant.

Then the skunk sauntered jauntily off toward the woods, looking as saucy as you please. The dogs bayed from their place of confinement; the boys stepped out to wave their hands after their departing guest; but not one was bold enough to wish to lay a hand on him.

"Good-by and good luck!" called Trapper Jim.

"Next time don't stay so long," laughed Owen.

"He's little, but oh, my, how mighty!" remarked Steve.

"Look out, he's stopped!" shrieked Bandy-legs, and with that everybody made a headlong plunge back of the cabin again.

Indeed, Bandy-legs himself hid in a thicket and looked rather white on reappearing again after Max sang out that the coast was clear.

"They say one swallow don't make a spring," remarked Owen, when all danger was over, "but it strikes me one polecat does."

Of course, since the object of his labor had now been successfully accomplished, Max took the board away from the top of the chimney.

This allowed the smoke to escape in a normal way.

But when they stepped inside the cabin the boys were loud in their expressions of disgust.

"That weed was sure a corker for smell as well as smoke, Uncle Jim!" declared Owen.

"Well, I guess you're right there," chuckled the trapper. "I admit it does run a pretty fair race with Mr. Skunk himself, and that's why they give it his name. But it did the business all right, eh, boys?"

"That's what," assented Steve, who had been holding his breath until he could get used to the tainted atmosphere.

"And we ought to be thankful it's no worse," declared Max, joining them.

"Yes," Trapper Jim went on to say, "I remember a case where in a logging camp some greenhorn was foolish enough to kill one of the animals, and the result was they had to build new quarters. Nobody could stand it in the old place. There's nothing more lasting."

"It ain't overly nice right now," asserted Steve. "I'm wondering which I like least, the perfume our visitor left or the one your old skunkweed made."

"Oh, we'll soon change all that, boys," declared Trapper Jim. "Build up the fire and we'll get busy. Just wait and see how it's done."

It was, after all, a very simple thing.

Trapper Jim's idea seemed to be built on the principle that "like is cured by like." He believed in overpowering one odor with another.

And when that cabin began to fill up with the appetizing scent of frying onions, flanked by that of some ground coffee, which Jim allowed to scorch close to the flames, even "hard-to-please Steve" admitted that everything seemed peaceful and lovely again.

"But after this," he remarked, "I hope when we all go away from home we'll be careful to close the blinds as well as the door."

"Yes," added Owen, "and hang out a sign 'This house is taken; no skunks need apply.' One dose was enough for me."

"But, s-s-say, wasn't it a c-c-cunning little b-b-beast," observed Toby, "and d-d-didn't he look real sassy when he m-m-marched off with his t-t-tail up over his s-s-shoulder?"

Steve looked at him severely.

"You'd better be mighty careful how you admire one of them striped critters at close quarters, Toby, if ever you meet one in the woods," he remarked.

"S-s-sure I will be careful," replied the other, with a wide grin.

"Because," Steve went on to say, "if you ever do get in collision with one, we'll have to bury every stitch you've got on, crop your hair close, and make you sleep and live in some old hollow tree. Ain't that so, Uncle Jim!"

"I guess that's about the size of it," came the reply.

"Oh, you d-d-don't need to w-w-worry about me," Toby hastened to say. "I know enough to k-k-keep out of the r-r-rain. I d-d-don't like his l-l-loud ways any b-b-better'n the rest of you."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," Steve continued, severely. "I'm a little suspicious about you, Toby, because you always did like cats. And I'm going to keep an eye out to-morrow for a handy hollow tree so's to be all ready."

"Oh, s-s-shucks! I h-h-hope you'll n-n-need it your own self," was what Toby sent back at him.

By the time supper was ready the boys were as hungry as a pack of wolves in January. And everything tasted so good, too.

Trapper Jim showed them how to cook some of the venison in a most appetizing way. It was "some tough," as even the proud Steve admitted; but, then, what boy with a gnawing appetite ever bothered about such a small thing?

The idea that they had actually shot the deer themselves would cover a multitude of sins in the eyes of the young Nimrods.

And while they were satisfied that the disagreeable odor left behind by their unwelcome guest had been dissipated, Trapper Jim knew better. They would detect faint traces of it about the place for days to come, and find no difficulty about believing the trapper's story about the abandonment of a lumber camp.

"Are all s-s-skunks s-s-striped like that one was?" asked Toby, during the progress of the meal.

"There he goes again," burst out Steve; "I tell you, fellows, we're going to have a peck of trouble with this here inquirin' mind of Toby's."

"G-g-go chase yourself!" blurted out the stuttering boy, indignantly. "I'm only tryin' to g-g-get information at c-c-close quarters."

"And you'll get it, all right," chuckled Steve. "You'll be satisfied, I reckon; but think of us, what we'll have to stand. Just you let that close quarters racket die out, Toby Jucklin."

"Some of the animals are jet black," remarked the trapper, "and they fetch a better price than the striped skins."

"Glory be!" ejaculated Bandy-legs.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded Steve.

"You don't mean to tell me they use the skins for furs?" Bandy-legs continued.

"Sure they do," replied Steve; "ain't that so, Uncle Jim?"

"They make splendid furs," was what the trapper remarked. "The striped ones are dyed, of course. And they have a way of removing any faint odor that happens to remain."

"Faint odor!" echoed Steve, sniffing the atmosphere. "I wonder if there ever is such a thing in connection with these awful beasts."

"That shows you haven't read up about them, Steve," remarked Owen. "Why, there are a whole lot of skunk farms all over the Northern States."

"You're fooling me, Owen," declared Steve, reproachfully.

"How about it, Uncle Jim; am I kidding him?" demanded Owen, turning toward the old trapper, who was enjoying all this talk immensely.

"Heaps of skunk farms, yes, siree," he replied, promptly. "They soon get to know the man who feeds them and give him no trouble. He's a peaceable little critter, and only when he gets excited does he go to extremes."

"Well, I want to give 'em all a wide berth," Steve asserted. "And if I meet one in the woods I'm willing to let him have the whole path. I'd take off my hat and bow in the bargain, if I thought he wanted me to. Because I've got a whole lot of respect for the skunk family. They're just immense!"

So they talked and jollied each other as they went on eating one of the "bulliest suppers" they had ever sat down to, as more than one of the boys loudly declared.

The dogs had been brought in and were given their share from the remains of the venison that had been cooked, the balance of the hind quarter having been hung out in the frosty air.

All of the boys had taken a decided fancy to the dogs, and in return the intelligent animals seemed to reciprocate this friendly feeling. Accustomed to sharing the cabin with the trapper at night as his only companions during the long winter months, they did not take kindly to the new rule that made them sleep out in a kennel while the boys were present. And when allowed inside they hugged the fire in a way that told how much they appreciated its cheery warmth.

They were lying there later on in the night and Trapper Jim had just mentioned that it must be time for him to take the dogs out, when old Ajax lifted his head and growled. Immediately little yellow Don did the same.

"What ails 'em?" asked Steve, as the dogs got up and stood there, the hair along their necks and backs rising up.

"Oh, I reckon they scent some animal prowling around outside," remarked the trapper, making for the door.

"Good gracious! I hope now it ain't that same old skunk come back because he's changed his mind!" exclaimed Bandy-legs, glancing hastily around, as if to see where he could hide.

The trapper, however, seemed to know that there was no danger along those lines. He took down the bar, and, throwing open the door, stepped out.

As he did so there was a sudden vicious snarl that thrilled the boys, and then the dogs bounded out with a chorus of wild barks.