A giant pine had fallen across the gorge from bank to bank, making a knotty bridge, which was almost over me, but a little in front; and upon that great log was the Something which had brought my heart up into my mouth with such a bump.
On the dark side of the tree, behind the stump of a huge limb, flat and motionless as you could press your hand upon the table, lay almost the last thing in the world that I desired to see there—a wildcat.
Whether it was crouching there when I came, or, as is more likely, had crawled out from the bank to surprise me, I never knew; but there it was confronting me.
I could just see the fierce glints in its eyes; and when its gaze met mine, the tip of the ears, outlined on a patch of sky, seemed to flatten. My rifle was in camp, for it was too long a walk to bring it when I wished to fish. I had not even a revolver—nothing but a keen-edged, clip-point hunting-knife, which hung in its sheath on my left hip.
I hardly dared move, but that knife I must have. Slipping my right hand cautiously behind my back, I reached far around, till at last it touched the welcome hilt, and I began to slip the sheath slowly around my belt to the right side, where the knife could be drawn less ostentatiously.
All this time I had never taken my eyes from those of the unwelcome intruder, and I kept scowling at him with a savage expression which was meant to alarm him, but which sadly flattered my real feelings.
How long we stood eyeing each other thus, I do not know. It seemed an age and must have been several minutes. Neither of us moved. He lay crouched and menacing; I stood outwardly defiant, with my hand on that precious buckhorn handle. And then my wet feet, chilled with the icy water of the brook, betrayed me. I felt a sneeze working toward the surface.
Now, when I sneeze, it is no gentle tschoo! but half a dozen or more wild and uncontrollable explosions, which never fail to bring tears to my own eyes, if they are lucky enough not to scare some unsuspecting stranger.
I struggled to choke that sneeze, to hold it back; but I might as well have tried to hold the foaming brook.
Ker-cheooo! Ker-cheooo! Ker-cheooo-oo! With each eruption my head flew down and my body shook; and as I straightened up after the fifth burst, I saw—through the mist that filled my eyes—something dark descending upon me like a great, hazy bird.