The Way of the Wild

in another way also. He came to read up for an exam. He told everybody this, which was one reason why he would be seen at ungodly hours, when no one was about, going to and from lonely spots,

is descend

number of rare birds he had living therein, and the colonel was wroth. Hawkley had, in fact, ruined the sanctuary, and taken or slain pretty well every other bird worth having in the place, so that five years would not make

r asserted, it must have been a very remarkable beast indeed; the magistrate said so. In consequence Hawkley got rather heavily fined, and went. He went more quickly than was expected, because the police got a telephone message from the

such a cat must have been worth a lot to a collector's agent, such as Hawkley was. But perhaps he left it by way of revenge. I do not know. Anywa

wild, but has been lost by their domestic degenerates. The sun was shining full in at the little diamond-paned window. The window was open, and a late fly of metallic hue was shooting about with a ping

at-not often seen these days-and a red face with small eyes, and a sticking-out beard of aggressiveness. This was no Hawkley. The cat knew it, as he knew, probably, the alien tread. Hawkley had a white, clean-s

ing into the scullery. For a moment he stopped, looking back over his shoulder, one paw

ut in the frame of the doorway and into the shadow

he mantel-piece ticked hurriedly, as if anxio

he bar-like gleam of hastily raised gun-barrels in the new flood of light, and-sil

d-keeper was standing in the doorway, with

t people gave him credit for. Apparently, he had seen enough to know that the cat was quite unlike any ordinary cat-and cats of any kind are bad enough-and cert

d not, as might have been expected, help him in this search. Indeed, his dog, he no

ge through which he was sliding. He growled under the punishment. Ordinary d

p it. It ran upwards, skirting a sloping wet field, to a dark, damp, black wood, as woods always are that sta

his forepaws straight, his hindlegs trailing out behind. So does t

t was yellowish, fading beneath, with "faint pale stripes" well marked on the sides; his tail was long, and oddly slender and "whippy," ringed faintly to

that cat delusions. He turned and galloped on. The keeper's dog was of an independent turn of mind. He had quietly run that cat's trail, forgetting that, in the long-run, dogs are not fitted to man

he saw a yellow streak rise under his nose, and bound, with all four legs stuck out quite straight, and claws spread abroad, l

quite crowded, and that do

s one could go a bit better than most; and when that dog at last got the cat's "leave to go," he went rather sooner than at once, proclaiming

ndrons, so that they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of raindrops collected in the leaves a

beyond. That showed strategy. The furze was a maze of a million spikes, and branches, and twisted, gna

ng every few strides to listen and glare round. Several tim

hting itself, as if something that had been sitting upon it had but just stolen away. All round were

r warning to prepare one for the unnerving c

ed, that creature, and big-nearly three feet long, to be exact; but it looked much bigger in

er it was, red-fanged and wild-eyed. It charged home upon Pharaoh without a second's pause, and with

e sortie, upset one man who had failed to grab its tail, run into and bitten another, and got clean away.

lightning side-leaps which are the pride of all the cats, and less to sp

nered, fought like-a cornered cat! T

rabbed, scrunched, drew back, grabbed, scrunched again, as a lion will-for the cats neither hold fast like a weasel nor snap like a wolf. Then, as the full force of the charge and

de things all the more grisly. You could almost see the grim skeleton shape of death, hovering over that growling, snarling, spitting, worrying, tearing, kickin

uch-just a good old churchy and human cough. But it might have been a blast from the trumpet of the archangel Gabriel himself by the effect it had upon the two combatants. They shot apart lik

ything, though he crashed into the furze and hunted-he never saw anything, which was no wonder, seeing that he could hardly have selected a w

unded by a hundred unseen sentries with brown jackets and white