starts forward with the loop about his neck. 

 Were it a fox, now, he would back away out 

 of the snare, or lie still and cut the cord with 

 his teeth and so escape. But, like all cats 

 when trapped, Pekompf flies into a blind fury. 

 He screeches at the unoffending stick, claws 

 it, battles with it, and literally chokes himself 

 in his rage. Or, if he be an old cat and his 

 cunning a bit deeper, he will go off cautiously 

 and climb the biggest tree he can find, with 

 the uncomfortable thing that he is tied to 

 dangling and clattering behind him. When 

 near the top he will leave the stick hanging 

 on one side of a limb while he cunningly 

 climbs down the other, thinking thus to fool 

 his dumb enemy and leave him behind. One 

 of two things always happens. Either the 

 stick catches in the crotch and Pekompf 

 hangs himself on his own gibbet, or else it 

 comes over with a sudden jerk and falls to 

 the ground, pulling Pekompf with it and 

 generally killing him in the fall. 



It is a cruel, brutal kind of device at best, 

 and fortunately for the cat tribe has almost 

 vanished from the northern woods, except in 



