e last,
except that a Dog she encountered drove her backward on her trail for a
long way. Several times she was misled by angling roads, and wandered
far astray, but in time she wandered back again to her general
southward course. The days were passed in skulking under barns and
hiding from Dogs and small boys, and the nights in limping along the
track, for she was getting foot-sore; but on she went, mile after mile,
southward, ever southward--Dogs, boys, Roarers, hunger--Dogs, boys,
Roarers, hunger--yet on and onward still she went, and her nose from
time to time cheered her by confidently reporting, "There surely is a
smell we passed last spring."

X

So a week went by, and Pussy, dirty, ribbon-less, foot-sore, and weary,
arrived at the Harlem Bridge. Though it was enveloped in delicious
smells, she did not like the look of that bridge. For half the night
she wandered up and down the shore without discovering any other means
of going south, excepting some other bridges, or anything of interest
except that here the men were as dangerous as the boys. Somehow she had
to come back to it; not only its smells were familiar, but from time to
time, when a One-eye ran over it, there was that peculiar rumbling roar
that was a sensation in the springtime trip. The calm of the late night
was abroad when she leaped to the timber stringer and glided out over
the water. She had got less than a third of the way across when a
thundering One-eye came roaring at her from the opposite end. She was
much frightened, but knowing their stupidity and blindness, she dropped
to a low side beam and there crouched in hiding. Of course the stupid
Monster missed her and passed on, and all would have been well, but it
turned back, or another just like it came suddenly spitting behind her.
Pussy leaped to the long track and made for the home shore. She might
have got there had not a third of the Red-eyed Terrors come screeching
at her from that side. She was running her hardest, but was caught
between two foes. There was nothing for it but a desperate leap from
the timbers into-she didn't know what. Down, down, down-plop, splash,
plunge into the deep water, not cold, for it was August, but oh, so
horrible! She spluttered and coughed when she came to the top, glanced
around to see if the Monsters were swimming after her, and struck out
for shore. She had never learned to swim, and yet she swam, for the
simple reason that a Cat's position and actio