

emphasizes the tendency of all cats to seek 

 the tree-tops with anything that they have 

 stolen; though curiously enough I have never 

 found any trace of it with game that they 

 had caught honestly themselves. It was in 

 Nova Scotia, where I was trout fishing for 

 a little season, and where I had no idea of 

 meeting Pekompf, for the winters are severe 

 there and the wildcat is supposed to leave 

 such places to his more powerful and longer- 

 legged cousin, the lynx, whose feet are bigger 

 than his and better padded for walking on 

 the snow. Even in the southern Berkshires 

 you may follow Pekompf's trail and see where 

 he makes heavy weather of it, floundering 

 belly-deep like a domestic tabby through the 

 soft drifts in his hungry search for grouse 

 and rabbits, and lying down in despair at last 

 to wait till the snow settles. But to my sur- 

 prise Pekompf was there, bigger, fiercer, and 

 more cunning than I had ever seen him; 

 though I did not discover this till after a 

 long search. 



I had fished from 

 dawn till almost six 



