gun
across the fence rail in the direction of the knoll.

"Like's not he won't come till toward morning," he whispered; "but we
must stay awake and keep listening for him. Don't you go to sleep."

I thought that sleep was the last thing I was likely to be guilty of. I
wished myself at home. The tales I had heard of the voracity and
fierceness of the striped catamount were made much more terrible by the
darkness. My position was so cramped and the old sleigh so hard that I
had to squirm occasionally; but every time I did so, Tom whispered:

"Sh! Don't rattle round. He may hear us."

An hour or two, which seemed ages long, dragged by; the crescent moon
sank behind the tree-tops and die night darkened. At last, in spite of
myself, I grew drowsy, but every few moments I started broad awake and
clutched the handle of the axe. Several times Tom whispered:

"I believe you're asleep."

"I'm not!" I protested.

"Well, you jump as if you were," he retorted.

By and by Tom himself started spasmodically, and I accused him of having
slept; but he denied it in a most positive whisper. Suddenly, in an
interval between two naps, I heard a sound different from the soughing
of the wind, a sound like claws or toenails scratching on the snow
crust. It came from the direction of the knoll, or beyond it.

"Tom, Tom, he's coming!" I whispered.

Tom, starting up from a nap, gripped the gunstock. "Yes, siree," he
said. "He is." He cocked the gun, and the barrel squeaked faintly on the
rail. "By jinks, I see him!"

I, too, discerned a shadowy, dark object at the top of the snow-crusted
knoll. Tom was twisting round to get aim across the rail--and the next
instant both of us were nearly kicked out of the sleigh by the recoil of
the greatly overloaded gun. We both scrambled to our feet, for we heard
an ugly snarl. I think the animal leaped upward; I was sure I saw
something big and black rise six feet in the air, as if it were coming
straight for the sleigh!

The instinct of self-preservation is a strong one. The first thing I
realized I was over the fence rails, on the side toward the Edwards
barn, running for dear life on the snow crust--and Tom was close behind
me! We never stopped, even to look back, till we were at the barn and
round the farther corner of it. There we pulled up to catch our breath.
Nothing was pursuing us, nor could we hear anything.

After we had listened a while, Tom ran into the house and waked his
father.