THE COURTING OF SILVERGRAY
CHAPTER XII
THE COURTING OF SILVERGRAY
AWAY went Silvergray, undulating among the high branches that led to the next tree, and keen behind came the two. Then they met at the branch that had furnished the footway for the Gray Lady, and in a moment they clinched. Grappling like cats, they drove their teeth into each other's shoulders, just where the hide was thickest and the danger least.
In their combat rage they paid no heed to where they were. Their every clutch was on each other, none for the branch, and over they tumbled into open space.
Two fighting cats so falling would have clutched the harder and hoped each that the other would be the one to land on the under side. Squirrels have a different way. Sensing the fall, at once they sprang apart, each fluffed his great flowing tail to the utmost—it is nature's own "land-easy"—they landed gently, wide apart, and quite unshaken even by the fall. Overhead was the Lady of the tourney, in plain view, and the two stout knights lost not a moment in darting up her tree; again they met on a narrow limb, again they clutched and stabbed each other with their chisel teeth, again the reckless grapple, clutch, and the drop in vacant air—again they shot apart, one landed on the solid ground, but the other—the echo voice—went splash, plunge into the deepest part of the creek! In ten heart-beats he was safely on the bank. But there is such soothing magic in cold water, such quenching of all fires, be they of smoke or love or war, that the Echo Singer crawled forth in quite a different mood, and Bannertail, flashing up the great tree trunk, went now alone.