FOREST AND STREAM 
[March 28, 1908. 
49O 
ago. By continual saving and the hardest of 
hard work, he had added to his real estate, in¬ 
creased his stock from a single cow, and a 
“dagon” (an ox trained to work in single 
harness) to a yoke of oxen, a yoke of steers, 
six cows and twenty head of young stock. His 
first and second wife had been unable to stand 
the strain of continual maternity and incessant 
work. His third wife married “Squire" Hawkins 
on the express condition that she should be 
allowed a “hired girl,” and that a horse and 
top-buggy should be added to the Hawkins 
menage. She was a pretty school ma’m two 
years younger than his eldest daughter; and, 
unlike most stepmothers, she was kind to the 
Hawkins children. 
Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins retired early. There 
were forty sheep to be sheared next morning 
and a lot of miscellaneous work to be done as 
well. The sheep and lambs lay down one by one 
and chewed the cud contentedly. The frogs’ 
chorus rose from the little stream which ran 
through the paddock; the woodcock circled and 
swooped over the alder swamp, and all along 
the little brook the glow-worms shone. 
An hour after midnight four stealthy forms 
crept out of the brush which fringed the pasture. 
The leader was almost as large as a collie 
dog, the three smaller ones about the size of 
house cats. They followed the shadow of the 
snake fence as far as the road. After a brief 
reconnoissance of the ground, they crossed the 
road in a few noiseless bounds, wriggled under 
the woven wire fence of the paddock, and made 
their way toward the nearest sheep. 
The rabbit plague had thinned out the natural 
food of the wildcat, partridges and squirrels 
were scarce, and for several days the cat, 
Miaumit, and her three kittens had lived pre¬ 
cariously on young robins, chipmunks, and an 
occasional trout or sucker. The kittens were 
almost independent of their mother, as far as 
nourishment went, but it still remained for her 
to initiate them into the science of woodcraft 
and teach them how to earn their living. For 
nearly a week the family had been on short 
commons; then it dawned on Miaumit that five 
or six miles to the north of the den there were 
certain animals, larger than rabbits, but equally 
easy to kill. They were just as tasty as caribou 
calves, but the mothers were not as watchful, 
nor had they the same terrible power in their 
forefeet that the caribou cows had. On the 
other hand, these animals were usually associ¬ 
ated with a dog which could travel as quickly 
as any wildcat, and though it never climbed a 
tree, it could sit at the base of one and make 
horrid noises until the man came, carrying the 
dreadful thing that made the noise and smoke 
and killed the thing it was pointed at. 
A hen partridge and her brood of recently hatch 
ed chickens, furnished the cats with a light repast 
on their way to the sheep pasture. The pasture 
was empty, but away in the distance they could 
hear the bleating of the ewes and the staccato 
voice of Abraham Lincoln. Miaumit made a 
careful reconnoissance of the ground, then re¬ 
turned to the kittens and they followed her into 
the paddock. 
There was no light showing in the house. 
Squire Hawkins was asleep, snoring like a 
trombone; his two boys were on the opposite 
side of the house, and Lulu, the collie, was shut 
up in the cellar, with her two pups. The sheep 
and lambs had no intimation of the cat’s ap¬ 
proach until the gray form bounded from the 
shadow of the fence, lit on one lamb, cut his 
throat from ear to ear with a single stroke, tore 
the throat out of the other one and made its way 
toward the next ewe. The elaborate caution 
shown in the advance was utterly disregarded in 
the attack. In less than a minute a hundred sheep 
and lambs were gathered in a terror-stricken, 
bleating mob. The kittens were already satiat¬ 
ing themselves on the warm blood which flowed 
from the first lambs killed. Miaumit went on 
killing for killing’s sake, regardless of the con¬ 
sequences. 
Mrs. Hawkins was a light sleeper, and the 
noise aroused her. “For God’s sake, get up, 
Hiram,” she called. “The dogs are at the sheep. 
Listen to the noise.” 
A muzzle-loading gun hung over the kitchen 
door. It was loaded with duckshot. Hawkins 
ran out in the moonlight, bare-footed. As he. 
got outside, there was a crash of broken glass, 
and Lulu came through the cellar window and 
went straight for the sheep. In the dim moon¬ 
light Miaumit saw her coming, and also saw the 
man. As a matter of fact she could have cut 
the collie to ribbons in thirty seconds and killed 
the man almost as easily, provided the gun were 
not there. She was not aware of that fact; so 
she gave a frantic call to the kittens, and ran 
for her life. The collie gained on her, she saw 
a dead maple tree some two hundred yards 
ahead, made for it, and treed in the hope the 
dog would overrun her scent. She was deceived; 
the collie followed her to the foot of the tree, 
and Hiram Hawkins followed. “Three fingers 
of duckshot” settled the account, and Miaumit’s 
body dropped limply from branch to branch. 
The Hawkins boys were out of doors by this 
time. The elder one investigated the dead lambs 
and cut the throats of two full-grown sheep 
which were badly mangled. Two of the kittens 
took refuge on the snake fence. The dog 
scented them, and in five minutes they had 
joined their mother in the happy hunting 
grounds. The third one made for the barn as 
soon as he saw the dog. The side door was 
open, and he made his way on to the top of an 
almost empty haymow, and leaped to a scaffold¬ 
ing, on which were a couple of sleighs, stored 
for the summer. 
Early next morning, the sheep shearing com¬ 
menced. The wild kitten lay on the cushion of 
one of the sleighs, not fifteen feet from the 
shearers, and if he could have understood Eng¬ 
lish* he would have been scandalized at the re¬ 
marks passed on the occurrences of the preced¬ 
ing night. Miaumit had killed five lambs and 
two sheep. Fortunately for Squire Hawkins, 
the sheep were in good condition. He skinned 
them and sent the mutton to market. Late in 
the evening, when the chores were done and the 
Hawkins family had retired, the kitten stole out 
of the barn. Ten minutes’ hurried scamper took 
him away from the scene of the last night’s 
slaughter into the safety of a large alder swamp 
some distance from the Hawkins place. There 
he found his supper, a brood of half-fledged 
robins and their mother, who was incautious 
enough to venture within reach of his paw as 
he raided the nest. Through the center of the 
swamp a narrow stream ran. There were trout 
and suckers in the brook, rabbits were numerous 
in the swamp, and in addition to several broods 
of partridges, there were many woodcock, both 
young and old. In the very center of 
the 
swamp there were a couple of dozen old hem 
lock trees. Too rotten to make decent fire¬ 
wood. and useless as lumber, they stood among 
the alders, second-growth spruce and swamp 
maples, the last remnants of the primeval forest, 
The equinoctial gales had blown two of them 
partially down. They had lodged in the tops 
of other trees, and among the mass of interlac¬ 
ing bows, lichen, and dark-green foliage 
“Pussy Tom” made his home. 
June and July passed. The brook dwindled 
to a thread; trout and suckers sought shelter 
under the banks or in the deepest holes. Par¬ 
tridges and woodcock became practically ex¬ 
tinct in the Long Swamp, and Pussy Tom found 
his menu restricted to field voles, garter snakes 
and an occasional chipmunk. In August, Squire 
Hawkins and his boys mowed the wild meadow 
on the north side of the swamp. Lulu and her 
pups came with them. The collie scented the 
wildcat the first day she arrived on the scene, 
and stood sentry under the hemlock trees for 
an entire day. One of the Hawkins boys went 
into the brush to see what the old dog was 
barking at so pertinaciously, but he found noth¬ 
ing. Pussy Tom had jumped from one tree to 
another, unseen by the dog, and finally he had 
taken refuge in the top of a bushy stunted 
That night he swam the river—much as he de¬ 
tested water—and found new quarters in an 
abandoned clearing which was rapidly growing 
up with second-growth spruce and white pine. 
Some scrubby neglected apple trees grew round 
the cellar of the old house, and in these trees 
he made his first great kill. The nearest house 
was a mile away. The settler kept turkeys, or 
rather, he allowed divers turkey hens to hatch 
out their broods, fed the young birds for ai few 
weeks and ‘then let them work out their own 
salvation until the fall. Morning and evening 
he fed them after a fashion. If they came home 
well and good; if they stayed away, it was sc 
much food saved. On this particular nighl 
Pussy Tom scented them; they retired to roosi 
in the old apple trees, surfeited with the buck 
wheat the}’' had eaten in a little pjtch of burn 
land. There were fifteen of them, including thi 
old hen, when they left home that morning 
Only six returned. Their owner blamed thi 
individual whose field they had raided. Hi 
never suspected the presence of a wildcat sc 
far to the north of the big woods. 
As the season passed away, the cat com 
menced to realize that the home he had chosei 
was not the safest place in the world. Ther 
were cattle ranging through the woods. The 
were followed by men, boys and dogs. On on 
occasion a mongrel hound picked up Puss 
Tom’s scent and followed it to the knoll he ha 
selected for a sleeping place. The mongrel ra 
mute, and he came upon the cat unawares. Th 
scrub was low. only three or four feet higl 
Treeing was impossible; it was hopeless to rut 
In a minute’s time the cur was in full flight, on 
ear in tatters, an eye almost torn out and tw 
or three deep scratches on his chest and bell} 
“What in thunder has the dog been up against? 
said his owner, as he came howling through th 
bushes. “He looks as if he’d been through te 
barbed-wire fences/’ 
[to be concluded. 1 
