As the big cat leaped, Mustard fastened his fangs into the beast's left leg, and was carried along with the cougar in its mighty spring. They could hear the hones grind as the iron jaws of the hound shut down on them.
With a scream of rage, the maddened animal came to a sudden stop.
Its cruel yellow head shot out, jaws wide apart, aimed straight for
Mustard, who was still hanging with desperate courage to the beast's
leg.
Yet the momentary hesitation, the few seconds lost in stopping in its rapid flight and reaching back for Mustard, proved the cougar's undoing.
With a snarl that sent a shiver up and down the backs of the Pony Riders, Ginger threw himself at the head of the beast. The hound's powerful jaws closed upon it with a snap.
Over and over rolled the combatants, the dogs without a sound—the cougar uttering muffled screams, its great paws beating the air. One stroke reached Mustard, hurling him fully a rod away, where he fell and lay quivering, a dull red rent appearing in his glossy coat.
The cougar, in an effort to throw Ginger off, was shaking his head, as a terrier would in killing a rat.
"Ah! He can't make it," cried Lige.
"Hang on, Ginger! Go it, Ginger!" encouraged the boys, now wild with excitement.
But the hound was fast losing his hold, and the hunters groaned in sympathy with him as they observed this.
Mustard, understanding this too, perhaps, struggled to his feet and staggered into the arena to assist his mate, only to meet a repetition of the calamity that had befallen him a few minutes before. Ginger's hold was broken at last. One great paw felled him to earth, and the cougar's yawning jaws closed over his head with crushing force.