“Huh!” sniffed Chinook. “I’ll bet he isn’t any better mouser than I’m going to be.”
“Don’t boast,” said Mother Brown Bear. “It would be better to watch and see how he does it.”
“Is he a better mouser than Mazama?”
“Watch and see,” was all Mother Brown Bear would tell them.
Once when the Ranger’s Boy had caught a glimpse of Paddy-paws crouched along the limb of a tree, he had at first taken him for merely the largest and handsomest tiger cat he had ever seen. “Pussy, pussy!” he had called ingratiatingly, wondering how a house cat came to be in the woods.
“P-f-f-f!” had hissed Paddy-paws, leaping away to another tree. Then the Boy had seen how his tail was bobbed, and his ears pointed, and how large his paws were, and how wildly his yellow eyes gleamed.
“You’re certainly not very friendly,” thought the Boy, “but I suppose it’s because you’re afraid. You are trying to frighten me with all that hissing.”
At first the cubs could only see that something moved stealthily, body held close to the ground, through the shadows of the tree trunks. Then as the big cat pounced on a mouse, they could see that he was a handsome, tawny fellow with spots on his sides. Then Mazama gave another screech.
The bobcat answered with an angry yowl. “Keep out of my hunting grounds!” he yelled at Mazama, and began sniffing about till he discovered a big mouse hole. Crouched there ready to pounce the minute its tenant showed his face, his attention was distracted by another mouse, who ran across the open, and with one leap he was upon it with a pitiless barbed paw. But Mazama had also been after that mouse, and the same instant Paddy caught it by the tail, the great owl snapped his beak in the mouse’s neck.
“Pht-t-t!” warned Paddy-paws. “That’s my mouse. Let go!” and he slapped with his free paw at the bird. Mazama gave a hoot of rage and slashed at the bobcat with one foot as he raised his wings and sailed away, bearing the bone of contention in his beak. The cat had a red scratch down one ear. That punishing claw had come very near his face. But he also clutched a handful of owl feathers.