KILLED BY SIX SHOTS. 155 



" I agree with you, judge," said the doctor ; " I fired 

 at a black cat ; the dogs have changed our cats in the 

 middle of this confounded bush ! " 



" So much the better, gentlemen," said I, in my turn ; 

 " we shall have two cats instead of one. Hallo there, 

 my dogs ! tally ho ! " And I hallooed the hounds to- 

 wards the thicket, at the point where the judge had fired 

 on his mysterious black quadruped. But they returned 

 to my cat, and would not listen to the huntsman, who 

 vainly attempted to bring them back upon the second 

 trail. 



" Positively and really," cried the judge, " I must have 

 been blind ! " 



We wished to throw the quarry to the dogs, and the 

 outrider immediately began to skin it. After he had 

 stripped off the skin and laid open the chine, it was easy 

 enough to recognize the cat as the same at which each of 

 us had fired in his turn. Out of the six shots four had 

 hit it, and the orifices made by the bullets showed that 

 both the judge, the doctor, my host, and myself had fired 

 at the same animal. 



Our dogs' scent was better, therefore, than the doctor's 

 sight. Our "medicine-man" confessed his error when 

 his ball was found in the creature's body, lodged between 

 a couple of muscles in the hind-quarters. According to 

 all probability, my cat had a changing skin, and belonged 

 to the race of chameleons. 



I confess that I was not weary of admiring the sharp, 

 pointed claws of the beast a gigantic one for his species 

 his flattened skull, his green eyes, his teeth as sharp as 

 a bodkin, and his reddish skin, spotted with white, and 

 diagonally traversed by black bands. Finally, when the 



