There was no response. Far, far away, up in the world, he heard an owl. Its call did not seem ghostly; it seemed even cheerful, coming from the solemn woods. There was no other sound; only a bubbling, oozy sound below him as the stone settled in the oozy mud and network of rotten roots and twigs.
“Tom!” he shouted.
There was no answer. The human body and the human spirit can bear only so much. When despair is added to fatigue and alarm, then hope dies and one accepts the verdict of fate. Death is welcome; anything is welcome.
In a blind impulse of despair, Brent straightened his embarrassed leg, felt the coils tighten with the movement, and pushed with all his might and main. The rock moved, he lost his balance and went sprawling down into the foul débris. He felt his senses slipping from him. But in his ebbing consciousness he knew that the reptile was now free and that presently its deadly fangs would be buried in his flesh. Even as his senses left him he could feel that sinuous body relax and unwind around his leg. Well, whatever happened, he would not know it....
CHAPTER XX—End of the Struggle
Tom knew that he was facing a wildcat. He knew that he was not in danger so long as the animal was not at bay. It is no longer the fashion for wildcats to chase young heroes as they used to do in the Dan Dreadnaught and Slickshot Sam Series. But, just the same, an encounter with a wildcat at bay is no pink tea. Personally, I prefer golf. If that wildcat had been able to listen to reason all might have been well, but he seemed to have an hallucination that Tom was advancing against him. And there was not much room behind the beast for a masterly retreat.
So he drew back, mouth open, eyes blazing, and cruel paw uplifted. His demeanor was exactly like that of a cat, lifted out of the domestic sphere and made magnificent. Tom had no intention of advancing, though he thought it quite likely that, if crowded, the creature would spring to the ground or to another branch. However, he took no chances. Discretion is the better part of valor, and he was in a hurry. He backed away along the limb and, as he did so, the creature, encouraged, advanced a trifle with menacing paw. He might spring, thought Tom.
In the circumstances a precipitous exit from the scene seemed wisest and he decided to give unmistakable appearance of withdrawal by a dexterous move to the limb below him. Getting a foothold on this, he caught hold of a small branch which broke, and he went tumbling to the ground.
He fell upon some thick brush and for a few moments saw all the stars known to astronomy. Then he picked himself up, staggered out of the natural cushion which had saved his precious young life, and found that he could hardly walk.
“No harm done,” was the laconic way in which he described the incident to me. But for all that he had to limp to the Gulch, occasionally pausing on a rock or fallen tree to ease the pain of walking.