te-tailed beast, coming from nowhere special out of the
night, had set upon her shoulder--a murderess caught in the act.

On three legs--her left hindleg had been bitten off by a trap set for a
hyena--emaciated, with all her natural buoyant courage gone out of her,
her wonderful agility gone too, she felt instantly in her heart that she
could neither face this diabolical-faced foe, nor yet get away from it.
This same crippled condition had spoilt her hunting forays, and, driven
by hunger, had made her nose into other people's nurseries, and be caught
just on the point of slaying somebody else's baby, when the owner had
come home, like a streak out of the night.

But that was not the worst of it, for she was longer than the enemy, a
bit, and might have put up a good fight--she had fought for her life, as
a matter of course, ever since she left her mother's side--if the enemy
had not brought with her an ally. It was not visible to the eye, that
ally, but it was to the nose--a most distinct and appalling stink, and it
could be felt, for it made her nostrils smart. Apparently, then, that
white tail was intentional, was as a red flag, insolently displayed,
warning all to beware of the stink. Well, there is more than one way of
holding your own in the wild, and a most unholy smell is not such a bad
way, either, when you come to think about it.

The owner of that nameless odor was a polecat--not our polecat; worse
than that--and--well, you know the breed. Fear they know not; neither is
pity with them a weakness, especially where the lives of their young are
concerned. This one did not wait. She attacked quicker than you could
cry "Knife," taking off with all four feet together, in a peculiar and
patent way of her own.

The would-be murderess, who was long, and absurdly short in the leg, too,
just like her opponent, only with a more graceful and not such a
thick-set body, turned on herself in a snaky fashion, and her neck, that
the fangs had aimed at, was not there when the polecat arrived, but her
teeth were, and they closed on the polecat's cheek.

The latter gibbered horribly at the spark of pain, and set herself really
down to fight.

The intending murderess said nothing at all, but, unbalanced with her
game hindleg, having no force to push or spring with, and being very
weak, she knew she was done for directly they closed to the clinch.

In a few seconds the polecat had her down, and only an awful, mad,
desper