sort of
contemptuous, and then Monty says, 'Jest so! That's what I've always
said about him; and I calculated that a cat of your intelligence would
say the same thing.' By and by Monty says, 'What's that you're saying
about Red-haired Dick? You think he'd steal mice from a blind cat, and
then lay it on the dog? Well! my son! I don't say he wouldn't. He's
about as mean as they make 'em, and if I was you I wouldn't trust him
with a last year's bone!' Then they kept on jawing to each other about
this and that, and exchanging views about politics and religion, till
after a while Tom lets out a yowl that sounded as if it was meant for a
big laugh. Monty, he laughed too; and then he says, 'I never thought you
would have noticed it, but that's exactly what Slippery Jim does every
time he gets a chance.'

"I don't know," continued Jim, "what they were referring to, but I do
know that Monty and the cat talk together just as easy as you and me
could talk, and I say that if it's come to this, that we're going to
allow an idiot of a man and a devil of a cat to take away the characters
of respectable gentlemen, we'd better knuckle down and beg Monty to take
charge of this camp and to treat us like so many Injun squaws."

Other miners followed Slippery Jim's example, in watching and listening
to his conversations with the cat, and the indignation against the
animal and his companion grew deep and bitter. It was decided that the
scandal of an ostentatious friendship between a boycotted man and a cat
that was unquestionably possessed by the devil must be ended. The
suggestion that the cat should be shot would undoubtedly have been
carried out, had it not been that Boston, who was a spiritualist,
asserted that the animal could be hit only by a silver bullet. The camp
would gladly have expended a silver bullet in so good a cause, but there
was not a particle of silver in the camp, except what was contained in
two or three silver watches.

After several earnest discussions of the subject it was resolved that
the cat should be hung on a stout witch-hazel bush, growing within a few
yards of Simpson's cabin. It was recognized that hanging was an
eminently proper method of treatment in the case of a cat of such
malevolent character; and as for Monty himself, more than one man openly
said that if he made any trouble about the disposal of the cat, he would
instantly be strung up to a convenient pine tree which stood close to
the witch-hazel