Wat laughed aloud with a coarse and almost fiendish laugh, as he cried out—
"I have cotched the old thief at last, in spite of her cunning! With a warning to boot. Here is a mark I sot upon her last winter," he added, as he raised her fore leg, which was deprived of the foot; "but she would be prowling, the superfluous devil! It is in the nature of these here blood-suckers, to keep a going at their trade, no matter how much they are watched. But I knowed I'd have her one of these days. These varmints have always got to pay, one day or another, for their villanies. Wa'n't she an old fool, Horse Shoe, to walk into this here gum for a piece of dead mutton? Ha, ha, ha! if she had had only the sense to rear up, she might have had the laugh on us! But she hadn't; ha, ha, ha!"
"Well, Wat Adair," said Robinson, "you had a mischievous head when you contrived that trap."
"Feel her ribs, Mr. Butler," cried Wat, not heeding the sergeant; "I know who packed that flesh on her. There isn't a lamb in my flock to-day that wouldn't grin if he was to hear the news."
"Well, what are you going to do with her, Adair?" inquired Butler; "remember you are losing time here."
"Do with her!" ejaculated the woodman; "that's soon told: I will skin the devil alive."
"I hope not," exclaimed Butler. "It would be an unnecessary cruelty. Despatch her on the spot with your rifle."
"I wouldn't waste powder and ball on the varmint," replied Adair. "No, no, the knife, the knife!"
"Then cut her throat and be done with it."
"You are not used to these hellish thieves, sir," said the woodman. "There is nothing that isn't too good for them. By the old sinner, I'll skin her alive! That's the sentence!"