An hour or two, which seemed ages long, dragged by; the crescent moon sank behind the tree-tops and the night darkened. At last, in spite of myself, I grew drowsy, but every few moments I started broad awake and clutched the handle of the axe. Several times Tom whispered:
"I believe you're asleep."
"I'm not!" I protested.
"Well, you jump as if you were," he retorted.
By and by Tom himself started spasmodically, and I accused him of having slept; but he denied it in a most positive whisper. Suddenly, in an interval between two naps, I heard a sound different from the soughing of the wind, a sound like claws or toenails scratching on the snow crust. It came from the direction of the knoll, or beyond it.
"Tom, Tom, he's coming!" I whispered.
Tom, starting up from a nap, gripped the gunstock. "Yes, siree," he said. "He is." He cocked the gun, and the barrel squeaked faintly on the rail. "By jinks, I see him!"
I, too, discerned a shadowy, dark object at the top of the snow-crusted knoll. Tom was twisting round to get aim across the rail—and the next instant both of us were nearly kicked out of the sleigh by the recoil of the greatly overloaded gun. We both scrambled to our feet, for we heard an ugly snarl. I think the animal leaped upward; I was sure I saw something big and black rise six feet in the air, as if it were coming straight for the sleigh!
The instinct of self-preservation is a strong one. The first thing I realized I was over the fence rails, on the side toward the Edwards barn, running for dear life on the snow crust—and Tom was close behind me! We never stopped, even to look back, till we were at the barn and round the farther corner of it. There we pulled up to catch our breath. Nothing was pursuing us, nor could we hear anything.
After we had listened a while, Tom ran into the house and waked his father. Mr. Edwards, however, was slow to believe that we had hit the animal, and refused to dress and go out. It was now about two o'clock. I did not like to go home alone, and so went to bed with Tom. In consequence of our vigils we slept till sunrise. Meanwhile, on going out to milk, Tom's father had had the curiosity to visit the scene of our adventure. A trail of blood spots leading from the knoll into the woods convinced him that we had really damaged the prowler; and picking up the axe that I had dropped, he followed the trail. Large red stains at intervals showed that the animal had stopped frequently to grovel on the snow. About half a mile from the knoll, Mr. Edwards came upon the beast, in a fir thicket, making distressful sounds, and quite helpless to defend itself. A blow on the head from the poll of the axe finished the creature; and, taking it by the tail, Mr. Edwards dragged it to the house. The carcass was lying in the dooryard when Tom's mother waked us.