United States or Eritrea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She promised faithfully to come down into the entry, when the horses approached, to receive the poor lamb, surrounded by lynxes, wild-cats, foxes, and wolves, and lead it into the safe fold if one can call this stately house by such a name.
"There's better game than that in these woods," said Jerry, after the robin had taken his departure. "Is there anything besides birds?" inquired Oscar. "Yes," replied Jerry, "there are rabbits, and woodchucks, and weasels, and skunks, and squirrels; and some folks say there are wild-cats here, but I don't know about that.
I can imagine myself saying "Pretty pussy, nice pussy," to the wild-cats I have shot in Nebraska and Dakota, but I should not be here if I had; and however small my value to the world I live in, I estimate it as worth at least a ton of wild-cats.
"Here's your marvelous rheumatism remedy," he cried, "made from the fat of wild-cats. Warranted to cure every kind of ache, sprain and misery known to man. Only fifty cents, ladies and gentlemen, sure cure or your money back. Anybody here with an ache or a pain?" The children pushed closer. Richard, feeling the effect of the gun-powder he had eaten, turned to Georgina.
"Then you think it is a terrific affair to kill a tiger or two? You have been accustomed to the sea, and fancy landsmen are good for nothing but shooting crows and wild-cats; that is a mistake, however; we are familiar with larger game." "Shiver my timbers! do you call bears and tigers game?" "I am afraid, Willis, you are a bit of a milksop."
And hunger came with the cold and the deep snow. The buck and the doe had to live on hemlock twigs till they grew thin and poor. The partridges were buried in the drifting snow, and starved to death. The lynxes and the wild-cats hunted and hunted and hunted, and found no prey; and it was well for the bears and the woodchucks that they could sleep all winter and did not need food.
There breed the coneys without number; and wild-cats haunt the place for that sake, and foxes; and the wood-wolf walketh there in summer-tide, and hard by the she-wolf hath her litter of whelps, and all these have enough; and the bald-head erne hangeth over it and the kite, and also the kestril, for shrews and mice abound there.
If it was caused by wild-cats there must be at least a dozen of them, and he had never heard of as many as that together. Besides, wild-cats wouldn't make such sounds. They might spit and snarl; but certainly no one had ever heard them squeak and groan.
It had aroused him, and now as he listened to it, and tried in vain to catch a single gleam of light through the intense darkness, it was so incomprehensible and uncanny, that brave boy as he was, he felt shivers creeping over his arms and back. Could the sounds be made by an animal? Winn knew there were wild-cats and an occasional panther in the forests bordering the creek.
On the second night of their camping, the men were aroused from sleep by the frightful screams from the women's tent; rushing out, they saw in the light of the great fire kept burning to frighten the wild-cats and mountain lions, a circle of venomous rattle-snakes, hissing like fiends and coiled for springing. The men fought desperately all night with shotguns and clubs.
Word Of The Day