Tap-tap-tap, the ghostly message came, and, trembling with excitement though I was, I managed to make out the words:
“What do you take me for? Do you want to starve me to death? Can’t you get rid of that blanked Cat?” Courtesy to my readers compels me to use the word “blanked” in place of the profane adjective Little Upsidaisi applied to Tom-Tom.
A desperate expedient possessed me. After tapping out a few words for Upsidaisi’s comfort, I made a low Kitten cry, such as used to perplex my teacher in my younger days. With every sense instantly alert, Tom-Tom erected his tail and started off down the trail like a blue streak.
I supplied the exhausted Mouse with food and drink, and bade him be patient until the following day, using the form of speech which he so readily understood.
Tom-Tom soon returned with the air of a fire engine which has just chased up a false alarm. He watched me very closely, and the following day, as I tapped out a message of hope to Upsidaisi, I noted a gleam of intelligence in Tom-Tom’s green eyes. I began to wonder, but I had no time to frame a definite thought, for, with a prolonged meow, Tom-Tom scratched on the floor vigorously, and my accustomed ears soon made out, through the bewildering succession of dots and dashes, another message in the Morse code.
“Where is that blamed Mouse?” it said. “My Kittens are about to be weaned and require solid food.”
There was a terrible cry of pain from the shelf, and before I could protest or interfere in any way, Little Upsidaisi was out of the cabin, running like mad, with Tom-Tom in full pursuit.
Instinctively, I followed them—through the dense undergrowth, over open fields, through barbed wire fences, along unblazed forest trails, and so on, with Upsidaisi always several lengths in the lead.
Even if I would, I could not interfere, and I had long since learned that it is the truest kindness to let the animals fight it out among themselves, since the fittest must survive and the weakest be crushed to the wall.
Now and then I heard a sob from the grass, where the Mouse was running in deathly fear, and deep, harsh breathings from Tom-Tom, who was now gaining his second wind and plunging ever closer to his hapless victim. A little ahead was the railroad track, which much surprised me. I had been so interested that I had kept no account of the distance and it came to me with something of a shock that we had run over ten miles.