“Sacre bleu! Take zat! And zat!” cried a sharp voice, between the blows that fell so swiftly. The animal's cries changed instantly from rage to pain. Nan opened her eyes in time to see the maddened cat flee swiftly. She bounded to the big tree and scrambled up the trunk and out upon the first limb. There she crouched, over the place where her kittens were hidden, yowling and licking her wounds. There was blood upon her head and she licked again and again a broken forefoot between her yowls of rage and pain.
But Nan was more interested just then in the person who had flown to her rescue so opportunely. He was not one of the men from the camp, or anybody whom she had ever seen before.
He was not a big man, but was evidently very strong and active. His dress was of the most nondescript character, consisting mainly of a tattered fur cap, with a woolen muffler tied over his ears; a patched and parti-colored coat belted at the waist with a frayed rope. His legs disappeared into the wide tops of a pair of boots evidently too big for him, with the feet bundled in bagging so that he could walk on top of the snow, this in lieu of regular snowshoes.
His back was toward Nan and he did not turn to face her as he said:
“Be not afeared, leetle Man'zelle. Le bad chat is gone. We shall now do famous-lee, eh? No be afeared more.”
“No, no, sir,” gasped Nan, trying to be brave. “Won't, won't it come back?”
“Nev-air!” cried the man, with a flourish of the gun which was a rusty-barreled old weapon, perhaps more dangerous at the butt end than at its muzzle. “Ze chat only fear for her babies. She have zem in dat tree. We will go past leeving zem streectly alone, eh?”
“No!” cried Nan hastily. “I'm going back to the camp. I didn't know there were such dangerous things as that in these woods.”
“Ah! You are de strange leetle Mam'zelle den?” responded the man. “You do not know ze Beeg Woods?”
“I guess I don't know anything about this wilderness,” confessed Nan. “My uncle brought me to the camp up yonder this morning, and I hope he'll go right home again. It's awful!”