“Then the second puma pounced.”
Horrified, and yelling for help, Kane tore at the bars, but there was no way of getting in, the door being locked. He saw that the wolf had secured a hold upon the puma’s throat, but that the great cat’s claws were doing deadly work. Then the second puma pounced, with a screech, upon the Gray Master’s back, bearing him down.
At this moment Biddell rolled out from under the raving, writhing heap, and staggered to his feet, bleeding, but apparently uninjured. With his fork and his booted foot he threw himself upon the combatants furiously, striving to separate them. After what seemed to Kane an age he succeeded in forcing off the second puma and driving it through the gate, which he shut. Then he returned to the fight.
But he had little more to do now, for the fight was over. Though no wolf is supposed to be a fair match for a puma, the Gray Master, with his enormous strength and subtle craft, might perhaps have held his own against his first antagonist alone. But against the two he was powerless. The puma, badly torn, now crouched snarling upon his unresisting body. Biddell forced the victor off and drove him into a corner, where he lay lashing his sides with heavy, twitching tail.
The keeper was sober enough now. One long look at the great wolf’s body satisfied him it was all over. He turned and saw Kane’s white face pressed against the bars. 136 With a short laugh he shook himself, to make sure he was all sound, then pushed the body of the Gray Master gently with his foot. Yet there was respect, not disrespect, in the gesture.
“I wouldn’t have had that happen for a thousand dollars, Mr. Kane!” said he in a voice of keen regret. “That was a great beast, an’ we’ll never get another wolf to match him.”
Kane was on the point of saying that it would not have happened but for certain circumstances which it was unnecessary for him to specify. He realized, however, that he was glad it had happened, glad the long pacing, pacing, pacing was at an end, glad the load of his self-reproach was lifted off. So he said something quite different.
“Well, Biddell, he’s free! And maybe, when all’s said, that was just what he was after!”