“Maybe she’s got a mate,” thought Frank. “If two of them come at me——” He didn’t like to dwell on that.
The big cat curled herself at the foot of the tree, and looked up at the boy, not far above her head. Then, as Frank carefully shifted his position, to get rid of a cramp in his left leg, his fingers came in contact with his belt filled with cartridges.
“Oh, if I had only brought the right size, or else had my other gun,” he mused regretfully. “There’d soon be a different story to tell. As it is——”
He paused, struck by a sudden thought.
“By Jove! I’ll try it!” he cried. “Wonder why I didn’t think of it before.”
Taking out a cartridge, and bracing himself in the crotch of a limb so as to have both hands free, he dug out, with his knife, the wad that held the shot in place. He let the leaden pellets fall to the ground. At this the cat growled, but the lad paid no attention to her.
Next he removed the wad over the powder, and poured the black grains out into his hand. From his pocket he took a piece of paper, and, emptying the powder into this he laid it in his cap, which he managed to balance on a limb in front of him. Working rapidly in the fast-gathering darkness he emptied several cartridges, until he had a sufficient quantity of powder in the paper.
This he wadded up tightly, leaving one end twisted into a sort of fuse. Next he tied a string to his improvised bomb.
With trembling fingers he lighted the fuse, and then, when it was burning well, he began to lower the paper of powder toward the wildcat. The beast snarled as she saw the tiny flame approaching, but she did not withdraw. Rather she reared on her hind feet, and was about to strike at the little tongue of fire.