Another moment and out of the tail of his eye he saw the great, heavy, bob-tailed cat, with his cruel face, squared off with a fringe of whiskers that framed his chin, and sharp ears tasseled with little tufts of fur at their tips.
The yellow eyes gleamed evilly as Old Man Lynx caught sight of Frisky hanging there so helplessly, and his grizzled gray-brown fur rose along his spine.
Now he was wriggling along the ground flattened out like a snake. Now he was creeping up the tree trunk as silently as a shadow, and now he was gathering his legs beneath him for the leap that would land him squarely on Frisky Fox.
Frisky knew that one crunch of those gleaming teeth would end it all, so far as the Red Fox Pup was concerned.
But Frisky had a trick up his sleeve. His wits were still in working order.
“What a pity!” sighed Shadow Tail, the Red Squirrel, as he peered from his hole in the oak tree.
For Old Man Lynx had no objection what-ever to having fox for supper. The only objection he had to foxes was that he could never catch one.
For to look at poor Frisky Fox, his red-brown fur still soft and silky, his black feet tapering so delicately and his white throat exposed, it didn’t seem as if he had a show in the world of escaping the huge cat.
But Old Man Lynx was stupid. He had nothing but his powerful muscles and his murderous teeth and claws, whereas Frisky had the nimble wit of one who lives by being both hunter and hunted.
And even as he waited for the leap for which he saw the Lynx preparing, he thought of a way out of both the grapevine and the danger he was in.