The fox still sat, making “sifflication.”
“But—but you must help, too, Una.” Pem was plucking the smart little costly coat from her friend’s shoulders, as she spoke. “You—you’ll have to help hold him down.”
“Oh! I daren’t. He might—bite.” Great, glassy tears rolled over Una’s eyelids, down her cheeks.
Did—did one of those passive tears, as it fell upon her bare hand, suddenly become a detector, a crystal detector, through which she picked up something from the air, by eye not by ear now, the memory, the ghost of a faint claim, it seemed, wafted from somewhere, made upon somebody—through a radio ring.
“Yes, I-I’ll help! Oh-h! it must be awful to be trapped.” She stumbled from the car.
“Warry—warry now!” Andrew was springing, at the same time, from his seat, drawing on thick gloves. “Hoot! I suppose a mon has got to make the ill-best of a bad job—but he’ll be an ill one to tackle, all tooth an’ claw.”
Already Pemrose, with the glossy huddle of soft beaver in her arms, was stealing towards the tortured thing that groveled and cackled again upon three legs—the fourth stuck out straight.
“Now, Unie, now quick—jump in—hold it down over him, tight,” she gasped “Over his head!”
And while girlish pluck pinned the coat—and the stifled form under it—to earth, Andrew’s quick hand found the spring of the steel trap, shaped like a bear’s jaws, and pressed it.
A convulsion under the smothering coat! A scraping—tearing and ripping!