136 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



hunting out there on the bleak, unfenced, 

 white reaches of the snow. 



Thus mistress of the situation, she found 

 the winter slipping by without further serious 

 trials. Only once, toward the end of January, 

 did Fate send her a bad quarter of an hour. 

 On the heels of a peculiarly bitter cold snap, 

 a huge white owl from the Arctic barrens 

 came one night to the island. The cat, 

 taking observations from the corner of the 

 verandah, caught sight of him. One look 

 was enough to assure her that this was a very 

 different kind of visitor from the brown 

 marsh-owls. She slipped inconspicuously 

 down into her burrow, and until the great 

 white owl went away some twenty-four 

 hours later, she kept herself discreetly out 

 of sight. 



When spring came back to the island, 

 with the nightly shrill chorus of fluting frogs 

 in the shallow sedgy pools, and the young 

 grass alive with nesting birds, the prisoner's 

 life became almost luxurious in its easy 

 abundance. But now she was once more 

 homeless, since her snug den had vanished 

 with the snow. This did not matter much to 

 her now, however, for the weather grew warmer 

 and more tranquil day by day, and, more- 

 over, she herself, in being forced back upon 



