CHAPTER X.
Still at the Foot of the Old Oak Tree.
The roar of the bison bull was hardly out of his ears, when the boy heard another slight rustling in the leaves and grass near-by, and peeping out from behind his cap, he saw that the moccasins had again shifted their position. Looking in the direction toward which their toes were turned, he saw an object more to be dreaded, by far, than a bison bull.
A wild-cat it was, already too near at hand, creeping up in that soft, sly way peculiar to animals of the cat family whenever they have a victim in view. A wild-cat—fat; sleek sides, all ribbed with stripes of black and white; white teeth, very long and sharp; black claws, longer and sharper still; ringed tail, very long and very lithe, waving softly all the time from side to side, with a sort of quivering eagerness in its motion, as if the owner were trying his best to hold it still, and for the life of him could not do so.
By this time, the handsome savage had slipped himself within easy springing distance of his intended quarry. Here he paused, and fixing his wild, sly eyes on those of the boy, began purring in a soft way, and licking his red chops with his long, red tongue in a soft way—that uncontrollable tail still waving from side to side in the same soft way—all in the softest, slyest way that you could well imagine, as if he were saying within himself: "But won't a wild-cat pap and a wild-cat mam and their wild-cat kittens feast and be merry to-night?"
All this took the boy but three winks of the eye to observe; though, in the time, he had not winked once, so fascinated was he by the gaze of those wild, sly eyes, which shone like balls of green fire, rather than eyes. Now was Wild Tom of the Woods making his squat for the long spring, and the poor little runaway screaming again to pap for help. But just then, in the very nick of time, with a swiftness that left a red streak in the air, the red moccasins darted directly at the wild-cat's face, and kicking the green fire out of his eyes, spoiled their charming expression in a twinkle. With a scream of amazement, fright and pain, which struck on the ear like the shriek of a terrified woman, the nimble creature spun lithely 'round, and, like the bull, reckless of all save the unseen foe behind him, made a blind leap sheer over the brink of the precipice, and in a moment sank out of sight.
This happily accomplished, the moccasins, precisely as they had done before, returned to their post; and the boy, precisely as he had done before, hid his face in his coonskin cap. Nor even yet one word of thanks for timely rescue from untimely end. Now, had you been in our hero's place, you would have up and made friends with the moccasins, there on the spot, for so kindly stepping in betwixt you and peril—shaken hands with them as whole-souled fellows, with whom it was to a bare-footed boy's behoof to stand on a good footing. But Sprigg was the worst spoiled boy in the world; which, unless I am mightily mistaken, you are not; and it still rang in his foggy young noddle that it was all the red moccasins' fault that he had been brought to straits so sad and desperate. Therefore, he owed them no thanks whatever for helping him out, let them kick as they might. Such being the case, Sprigg would not have made friends with the moccasins, had it been to save their soles.
So, there sat the boy, with his face in his coonskin cap; and there stood the thing, with its feet in the moccasins; and there flung the sun his last red beams, then went his way, unrecking who wept to see him go.
Now, shade by shade, with foot as stealthy and soft as the furred paw of the gray cat, came the gray twilight, creeping, creeping on. The hour, when the gray owl, with a whoop, from his hole in the tree; and the gray wolf, with a howl, from his cleft in the rock, come forth in quest of their prey. And woe to the fawn! And woe to the birdling! strayed from home for the first time, should the shadows of night, that tempt the famished foe abroad, find him still far from the old one's side; for chased shall he be, and caught up by the claws, or dragged down by the fangs of the dread destroyer!
And Sprigg—poor child! How weak and helpless to be in a spot so lonely and dreary and perilous, and so far away from the dear old hearts of home! Hearts, by this time, so overburdened with grief and distressing apprehensions—all for him! How weary, too, and faint he felt! And how he longed to lay him down to sleep and be at rest! But this, he dared not, lest he should awake but to find long, sharp horns at his breast, or long, sharp teeth at his throat. Or, if not this, he might, while yet asleep, be borne away to some spot, still more distant and lonely, by the strange being, who stood just there in the moccasins, the gaze of whose unseen eyes he now felt in his inmost heart.