Our course took us directly across the pasture where the big Jersey had his range. He was lying down for the time, and we almost stumbled over him. Springing up and lowering his sharp horns, he took after us with a kind of yelling roar that bespoke anything but a friendly intention.
We dropped our game and bounded on like a couple of young greyhounds: but we were far out from the nearest fence, and saw that he must soon overtake us with his mad, thundering rush. Right ahead of us stood a scrub oak, with branches near the ground, and into this we sprang just in time to avoid those terrible horns which would have tossed us like wisps of straw.
He was so close upon us that it was impossible to secure our guns, and we dropped them at the foot of the tree, where they fell rattling between two small rocks, which fortunately protected them from his trampling hoofs.
Then he besieged us in true form, walking all about our fortress, with a hoarse, frightful bellowing that sometimes grew to a shriek, and tearing up the earth with his horns till his whole body was coated with turf.
“Well,” said Harold, “we are safe enough in this tree, but who wants to be kept here all night? He is so apt to roar that, even if father or any of the work folks should hear him, they might not come to see what the matter was. Besides, it’s a long distance to the house, and the hill yonder is right in the way.”
So we remained watching our savage jailer, quite forgetting for the moment the sounds we had just heard from the woods. How long would the old fellow continue to bellow and fling up the dirt? I was asking some such question when my cousin uttered a quick exclamation.
“Oh, see! look yonder!” he cried; “there’s the tiger now!”
I looked where he pointed, and my heart gave a thump that was almost suffocating.
There, creeping close to the ground, was a powerful yellow shape, marked with jet-black stripes. The ears were flattened, and the long tail, reaching straight out on a level with the body, had a wavy motion that I distinctly remember to this hour. Warily, silently, and just upon the point of making a spring for his victim, the fearful creature was stealing upon the unsuspicious bull.
Though half paralyzed by the scene, we still retained some presence of mind. Perhaps a shout might delay the attack, and we gave one with all the power of our throats.