rom the
ground, poor puss will not have time to execute her clever feat,
and will fall on her back. Therefore, for her sake, practise this
experiment _over a bed_.

Here I must inform you, that Harvey, the gamekeeper, who had long been
looking out for the destroyer, had this morning been informed by some
boys who were nutting in the copse, that they had seen her running
across an open space, with a fine cock pheasant in her mouth. Now the
keeper had found, from his experience on two former occasions, that it
was useless to fire small shot at an animal who had such a defence in
her thick close fur, and who was too wary to allow him to approach very
near. Therefore, giving his double-barrelled fowling-piece into the
hands of his son, a lad of about fourteen, who accompanied him, he
armed himself with a _rifle_, which is a gun made on purpose for
throwing bullets very accurately, to a long distance. He left all his
dogs at home, thinking they would be of more harm than use.

Harvey and his boy had already been some hours in the wood, and were
beginning to think that they had received false information, when young
Dick, who was a remarkably sagacious, intelligent fellow, suddenly
stopped his father, and pointed to some trees at a little distance.

"Well, lad," whispered Harvey, "what dost see now?"

"Look at those squirrels, father!"

"I see 'em plain enough, but it won't do. Though if it wasn't for
master's orders, I should like to try the rifle upon one of 'em, I must
say."

"No, no, father," replied Dick, "that isn't what I mean. But only look
at them! They aint eating, nor doing nothing, but they have all got
their heads one way, and they stick themselves up as if they were
frightened at something. Depend upon it, father, the wild-cat isn't far
from those squirrels, if she is in the wood at all."

"_I see!_" replied his father: "that's as bright a thought as ever came
into thy head, son Dick! But we have no chance among these plaguy thick
bushes. We must creep quietly out into the path, and then perhaps we
may get a shot at the varmint."

So the two cat-hunters concealed themselves behind a tree, by the side
of the path, and just as the wild-cat was pouncing upon her prey, a
ball from the keeper's well-directed rifle laid her howling upon the
ground, with the bone of her hind-leg smashed to atoms.

But he who supposes that one of these ferocious animals is conquered
merely because her leg is