The Wit of the Wild 



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lifted the weasel by the nape of the neck, and 

 held him out at arm's length between his thumb 

 and finger an image of impotent rage. His 

 head was like a round wedge, his ears lay flat 

 back, his round black eyes glowed like jet, and 

 the white, long-whiskered lips, flecked with 

 blood, were drawn back from a jagged row of 

 needle-pointed teeth, ivory-white, in a snarl that 

 portrayed a prisoner caught but not con- 

 quered. He writhed and squirmed in the man's 

 firm grasp, trying his best to get his teeth 

 into the detaining fingers, and did succeed in 

 scratching them with the nails of a paw already 

 red with the blood of the wounded pullet. 



It would be hard to make a finer picture of 

 baffled fury than that little carnivore presented. 

 He knew he was doomed, for he remembered 

 other chickens he had caught and killed ; and if 

 he had acted like a coward he would simply 

 have been drowned in the horse-trough or had 

 his brains dashed out on a rock. But his bold 

 spirit against overwhelming odds his un- 

 quenchable courage won him a nobler fate; 

 and calling his dog my friend gave the bandit 



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