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Updated: May 13, 2025
"Let's forget the old trouble, Oochak. Let's be friends. I've got a fine windfall and I'll kill you a rabbit." And still Oochak did not move or make a sound. At last Miki could almost reach out with his forepaws and touch him. He dragged himself still nearer, and his tail thumped harder. "And I'll get you out of the trap," he may have been saying. "It's the man-beast's trap and I hate him."
Oochak accepted this as an invitation for him to move on, and being a gentleman who respected other people's preserves he made his apologies by beginning a velvet-footed exit. This was too much for Miki, who had yet to learn the etiquette of the forest trails. Oochak was afraid of him. He was running away! With a triumphant yelp Miki took after him. After all, it was simply a mistake in judgment.
And then, so suddenly that Miki had no chance to guard himself, Oochak sprang the length of the trap-chain and was at him. With teeth and razor-edged claws he tore deep gashes in Miki's nose. Even then the blood of battle rose slowly in him, and he might have retreated had not Oochak's teeth got a hold in his shoulder. With a roar he tried to shake himself free, but Oochak held on.
So absorbed was he in his feast that he was unconscious of a new arrival on the scene. He did not hear the coming of Oochak, the fisher-cat; nor, for a few moments, did he smell him. It was not in Oochak's nature to make a disturbance. Nor did he run away. He would undoubtedly have continued on his way very soon if Miki had not finally sensed his presence, and faced him.
He probably weighed between eight and ten pounds, had a bullet head, almost no ears, and atrocious whiskers. Also he had a bushy tail and snapping little eyes that seemed to bore clean through whatever he looked at. To Miki his accidental presence was a threat and a challenge. Besides, Oochak looked like an easy victim if it came to a fight. So he pulled back his lips and snarled.
Oochak had come from the other side of the log, and stood not more than six feet distant. To one who knew as little of his history as Miki there was nothing at all ferocious about him. He was shaped like his cousins, the weazel, the mink, and the skunk. He was about half as high as Miki, and fully as long, so that his two pairs of short legs seemed somewhat out of place, as on a dachshund.
Then his jaws snapped at the back of the fisher-cat's neck. When he was done Oochak was dead. He slunk away, but in him there was no more the thrill of the victor. He had killed, but in killing he had found no joy. Upon him the four-footed beast had fallen at last the oppression of the thing that drives men mad. He stood in the heart of a vast world, and for him that world was empty.
It was there tonight, so fresh that Miki stopped when he came to it as if another Oochak had risen before him. For a space he was turned into the rigidity of rock by a single overwhelming emotion. Darkness came, and he was still following it. In the light of the stars he persisted, all else crowded from him but the homing instinct of the dog and the desire for a master.
In there he lay a good half hour, trying hard to comprehend just what had happened. The sun was setting when he dragged himself out. He limped. His one good ear was bitten clean through. There were bare spots on his hide where Oochak had scraped the hair off. His bones ached, his throat was sore, and there was a lump over one eye. He looked longingly back over the "home" trail. Up there was Neewa.
If so, he had grown even as Miki had grown. He was splendid, with his long silken fur and his sleek body, and he was not struggling, but sat awaiting his fate without excitement. To Miki he looked warm and soft and comfortable. It made him think of Neewa, and the hundred and one nights they had slept together. His desire leapt out to Oochak. He whined softly as he advanced. He would make friends.
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