There were high words between Chet and Master that noon, and I heard the former mutter as he walked off:
"Old meddler, I'll give you something to make a row about one of these times."
A few days later, poor old puss, while looking for mice in a bin of grain, put her paw into a steel trap that had been placed there by Tommy, on purpose.
"I'll finish this cat somehow," he said.
It was late at night when puss was caught, that is, after the work was all done, and I cannot bear to even think of the torture she must have endured all those long hours until daylight.
Paddy found her when he went for oats.
"Mercy on us!" he cried, as he caught sight of the wild, glaring eyeballs. She was almost mad with the long strain and agony.
Not daring to touch her, he ran for a gun, but the boys, suspecting what was going on, rushed into the barn ahead of him, and shouted with fiendish glee when they saw her.
"Pull her out," shouted Tommy, and loosing the chain that held the trap, they flung that and the suffering creature rudely on the floor. Her paw was crushed at the main joint.