w no
chance for escape and could not bear to see the vicious beast leap at
her again. "Momsey! Papa Sherwood!" she thought, rather than breathed
aloud.

Then, down the hill toward her, plunged a swift body. She rather felt
the new presence than saw it. The cat yowled again, and spit. There was
the impact of a clubbed gun upon the creature's head.

"Sacre bleu! Take zat! And zat!" cried a sharp voice, between the blows
that fell so swiftly. The animal's cries changed instantly from rage to
pain. Nan opened her eyes in time to see the maddened cat flee swiftly.
She bounded to the big tree and scrambled up the trunk and out upon the
first limb. There she crouched, over the place where her kittens were
hidden, yowling and licking her wounds. There was blood upon her head
and she licked again and again a broken forefoot between her yowls of
rage and pain.

But Nan was more interested just then in the person who had flown to
her rescue so opportunely. He was not one of the men from the camp, or
anybody whom she had ever seen before.

He was not a big man, but was evidently very strong and active. His
dress was of the most nondescript character, consisting mainly of a
tattered fur cap, with a woolen muffler tied over his ears; a patched
and parti-colored coat belted at the waist with a frayed rope. His legs
disappeared into the wide tops of a pair of boots evidently too big for
him, with the feet bundled in bagging so that he could walk on top of
the snow, this in lieu of regular snowshoes.

His back was toward Nan and he did not turn to face her as he said:

"Be not afeared, leetle Man'zelle. Le bad chat is gone. We shall now do
famous-lee, eh? No be afeared more."

"No, no, sir," gasped Nan, trying to be brave. "Won't, won't it come
back?"

"Nev-air!" cried the man, with a flourish of the gun which was a
rusty-barreled old weapon, perhaps more dangerous at the butt end than
at its muzzle. "Ze chat only fear for her babies. She have zem in dat
tree. We will go past leeving zem streectly alone, eh?"

"No!" cried Nan hastily. "I'm going back to the camp. I didn't know
there were such dangerous things as that in these woods."

"Ah! You are de strange leetle Mam'zelle den?" responded the man. "You
do not know ze Beeg Woods?"

"I guess I don't know anything about this wilderness," confessed Nan.
"My uncle brought me to the camp up yonder this morning, and I hope
he'll go right home again. It's awful!"

"Eet seem te