23§ Hills and Laz^b. 



brandies, and. my guide, as lie sprung to his feet, e^* 

 claimed, " It's a wild*cat." 



This animal is not uncommon in these woods, 

 though we had not as yet happened to see one. We 

 cheered Shack on, and he sat barking at his game till 

 the morning broke, when we saw at some thirty feet 

 from the ground, stretched out along a great branch 

 of an elm, a catamount,— ^his great, round, gray eyes 

 watching, with intense malignity, his enemy below* 

 His head lay over on one side of the branch, and he 

 kept up a continued low growl. He would have been 

 more than a match for the dog, with his great claws 

 and sharp teeth, but he lacked courage to come down, 

 and have a fair fight on the ground. When it was 

 light enough to make a sure thing of it, I drew up by 

 the side of a sapling, and aiming carefully at his skull, 

 fired ; he drew his head back, with a convulsive jerk, 

 between his fore feet, seemed to grasp, for a moment, 

 more closely the limb on which he was perched, and 

 then, as muscle after muscle relaxed, he rolled off, and 

 dropped heavily to the ground. As he struck the 

 earth, Shack was upon him ; but that was needless, — 

 he was dead. He was a small animal of his kind,— 

 five or six times larger than a house-cat, of gray, or 



