broken, will find himself very much mistaken.
A wild-cat conquered! no, indeed! You may kill her, but she _never
yields_, so long as she has any life remaining. And so Harvey found to
his cost. For when he saw the animal rolling upon the ground, supposing
her to be mortally wounded, he ran up towards her, intending to finish
the affair with a blow from the butt end of his rifle. Now this
imprudent conduct proved that he had never encountered a wounded
wild-cat before. No sooner had he approached within a few yards of her,
than, regardless of her broken leg, she sprang upon him like a fury,
and before he could aim a blow at her, she was at his throat, with her
fore-legs clasped round his neck.

Frightful! only imagine the horrors of such an embrace! In vain poor
Harvey strove with all his might to cast off the savage creature from
him, and I cannot tell how the affair might have ended, if Dick had not
been at hand to render assistance. Waiting for a favourable opportunity,
he put the muzzle of his gun close to the creature's body, and firing
both barrels at once, in his eagerness to do the business effectually,
he made such a terrible hole in her side, that, if she had had nine
hundred lives, instead of the usual moderate number of nine, they would
all have taken flight through the wound in an instant. She fell to the
ground, a mangled, blackened corpse.

And how did poor Harvey escape? Better than could have been expected,
considering the powerful teeth and claws of his adversary. To be sure,
he was pretty severely bitten and scratched, but his wounds were not
dangerous; and when he had recovered his breath, and wiped the blood
from his face, the first thing he did was to stretch his vanquished foe
at her full length upon the ground. Then laying his rifle by her side,
he said to Dick, "She's full four feet long, if she's an inch, and I
have gained my wager! I laid a bet of a guinea, with Lord
What's-his-name's keeper, that she would turn out to be four feet long,
and so she is, and more, as I can tell by the length of this barrel.
But only look at her teeth, Dick, and her terrible claws!"

"And what a great bushy tail!" said Dick, rubbing it through his hands;
"and see, father, 'tis the same size from end to end, and quite black
at the tip, just as that learned stranger gentleman up at the hall said
that all real wild-cats were."

"A learned gentleman! Let me tell thee, son Dick, if thee hadst had thy
face and hand