The scheme was a brilliant one, perhaps; but young as was Tom Gordon, he felt that the difficulty lay in its application.

“Gracious!  Jim! the tiger is stirring up things, isn’t he?  We’ve got a gun in the house, and if he visits us I think I’ll try that.”

“Do you know where to hit him?” asked Jim, who, having fully recovered his wind, seemed at the same time to have regained a vast amount of curious knowledge of natural history.

“I s’pose in the head is as good as any place.”

“Don’t you think of such a thing!  He don’t mind being hit in the head more than you do getting hit by a spit-ball.  You must aim for his tail!”

“How can that hurt him?” asked the amazed Tom.

“Why, I seed the balls that hit his head glance off and scoot up in the air, like skipping stones over the water.  A tiger uses his tail to balance himself with.  Shoot off his tail, and he loses his balance.  Every time he tries to walk, he tips over.  Don’t forget, Tom, if you shoot, to aim at his tail, just where it is stuck onto his body.  If you miss, look him in the eye; and if that doesn’t stop him, let drive with your foot under the jaw, and don’t forget to have your shoes on.  Well, I must go home to tell the folks to git ready,” added Jim, loping off like an Indian starting on a long journey.

Tom had caught the contagion of excitement, and the moment his friend left he made a dash for the door of his home, bursting in upon his mother and aunt with the astounding news just received from his playmate.

Strange women would they have been not to have been wrought up by the alarming tidings.  Brushing aside the chaff, there remained the wheat in Jim’s words to the effect that the tiger, one of the finest of his kind ever seen in captivity, had broken out of his cage, injured, if not killed, a number of people, and was in the immediate neighborhood, with the prospect of paying a visit to this home.

“The gun is loaded,” said the mother, turning slightly pale; “but I don’t think one of those animals will attempt to enter a house.”

“I have read that in India,” remarked her sister-in-law, “they follow the natives into their houses, and tear down the structures in their fury.”

“But their dwellings are made of light bamboo, and are frail structures.”

“We may as well be on the right side,” remarked the other, stepping hastily to the door.  But just before reaching it, the latch flew up, and Jim Travers plunged in, falling on his hands and knees, the picture of terror itself.

“Shut the door quick!” he gasped.  “The tiger is coming; he’s coming; he’s right behind me.”

In a twinkling, Aunt Cynthia sprang forward, caught the latch, and slid the heavy bar in place, while the mother hastened to the window.

“Look out!” called Jim, clambering to his feet; “he’ll spring right through and chaw you up, quicker’n lightning.”