THE LIFE AND DEATH OF LUCY 131 
When he drew near, Solon hesitated about 
drawing nearer. The sounds issuing from the 
cleft were not reassuring, even to a man with a 
gun, and Solon was not a hunter, anyhow. But 
he did love his Rhode Island Reds, and he did 
rather care for his dog, and he did relish five 
dollars, which was the bounty on cats. So finally 
he approached close to the opening, and peered 
in, gun thrust forward, cocked. But he couldn’t 
tell which was dog and which was wildcat—or 
not for long enough to fire. Again he yelled at 
his dog. The dog tried to back out, but the grape- 
vine caught him. ‘The cat was following him up, 
striking at his face, but protected from the gun 
by his body. It was only at that instant that 
Lucy really became aware of Solon, and sud- 
denly she seemed to rise right through the grape- 
vine, coming straight at Solon’s head. He 
emitted a yell that would have done credit to 
Lucy herself, and jumped to one side. At the 
same instant the gun went off. The flame singed 
Lucy’s coat, but did her no other harm. She 
missed Solon by about the same margin as he 
missed her, landed on the snow, whirled like a 
