“It was a fearful bang I had where my head struck the tree, but I don’t think I am hurt anywhere else. But you—oh, what will you do? You are most fearfully wounded!” she cried, fairly appalled at his condition.
Mose Paget shook his head.
“I have a few scratches where the beast clawed me, but it isn’t worth talking about. It is lucky, though, that I heard you scream, for it might have gone hard with you and the dog if I had not been here.”
“Is the dog killed?” cried Pam, starting up to run back to the spot where the plucky creature had been so mixed up in the fray with the savage grey animal of the sinuous shape.
Mose stopped her with a gesture.
“No, it isn’t dead, but it is a bit clawed about, and it will be a week or two before it is fit to walk again, I’m afraid. I am going to carry it home for you, only I might as well fasten this door, so that those beasts can’t take shelter here again.”
“What were they?” asked Pam. She was shaking horribly still, and she had a feeling of nausea that was horrible.
“Canada lynx is their book name, but we call them Indian devils, and the name fits them to a nicety,” he answered, as he put his head into the tumbledown shack; but he hastily withdrew it, the odour from the animals which had found a shelter there being unpleasantly overpowering. “They are the cutest and wickedest beasts that are found anywhere in the forests. They are very rare, though, and happily they are getting rarer. I had an uncle who was so badly clawed by one that he carried the marks to his grave; fifty years ago that must have been, and I have not heard of any in this neighbourhood since.”
“I shall be afraid to venture into the forest alone after this,” cried Pam, and again she shivered violently, feeling deadly sick, and not understanding that the nausea was almost entirely due to the shock to her nerves.
“No, you won’t,” Mose contradicted her harshly, then drew the broken door close and fastened it, so that no wild creature could get inside. “You won’t see that charming pair again, I’ll be bound. There will be a score of men out hunting for them directly word goes round that they have been seen, and it is not likely that you will see another pair if you live in these parts until you are an old woman.”