fanity and prayer, but the Cat knew
nothing of that.

The stranger braced the door which he had forced, got some wood from the
stock in the corner, and kindled a fire in the old stove as quickly as
his half-frozen hands would allow. He shook so pitiably as he worked
that the Cat under the bed felt the tremor of it. Then the man, who was
small and feeble and marked with the scars of suffering which he had
pulled down upon his own head, sat down in one of the old chairs and
crouched over the fire as if it were the one love and desire of his
soul, holding out his yellow hands like yellow claws, and he groaned.
The Cat came out from under the bed and leaped up on his lap with the
rabbit. The man gave a great shout and start of terror, and sprang, and
the Cat slid clawing to the floor, and the rabbit fell inertly, and the
man leaned, gasping with fright, and ghastly, against the wall. The Cat
grabbed the rabbit by the slack of its neck and dragged it to the man's
feet. Then he raised his shrill, insistent cry, he arched his back high,
his tail was a splendid waving plume. He rubbed against the man's feet,
which were bursting out of their torn shoes.

The man pushed the Cat away, gently enough, and began searching about
the little cabin. He even climbed painfully the ladder to the loft, lit
a match, and peered up in the darkness with straining eyes. He feared
lest there might be a man, since there was a cat. His experience with
men had not been pleasant, and neither had the experience of men been
pleasant with him. He was an old wandering Ishmael among his kind; he
had stumbled upon the house of a brother, and the brother was not at
home, and he was glad.

He returned to the Cat, and stooped stiffly and stroked his back, which
the animal arched like the spring of a bow.

Then he took up the rabbit and looked at it eagerly by the firelight.
His jaws worked. He could almost have devoured it raw. He fumbled--the
Cat close at his heels--around some rude shelves and a table, and
found, with a grunt of self-gratulation, a lamp with oil in it. That he
lighted; then he found a frying-pan and a knife, and skinned the rabbit,
and prepared it for cooking, the Cat always at his feet.

When the odour of the cooking flesh filled the cabin, both the man and
the Cat looked wolfish. The man turned the rabbit with one hand and
stooped to pat the Cat with the other. The Cat thought him a fine man.
He loved him with all his heart, though he