THE LITTLE SLY ONE
From away up near the top of the rocky hill that rose abruptly across
the inlet came a terrible screech, piercing and startling.
"Gee!" said the Babe, slipping closer to Uncle Andy, where they sat
together on a log by the water. "I'm glad that's away over there!
What is it, Uncle Andy?"
"Lynx!" replied Uncle Andy, puffing at his pipe.
"What did he go and do _that_ for?"
"Well," said Uncle Andy presently, "if you'll try your level best to
listen without interrupting, I'll tell you."
"I'm _not_ interrupting!" protested the Babe.
"_Of_ course not!" agreed Uncle Andy. "Well, you see, the lynx is the
slyest thing that goes on four legs. You think, maybe, a fox is sly.
That fool guide Bill's told you that. Now, a fox is sly when he
chooses to be, and when he wants to be impudent he'd sass King Solomon
to his face. But a lynx is just born sly, and can't even think of
outgrowing it."
"I don't see anything sly about that noise he made just now!" said the
Babe.
"There you go!" exclaimed Uncle Andy. Then he stopped and thought for
quite a while. But as the Babe never spoke a word he soon went on
again.
"You see, I was just coming to that. That awful screech is one of the
slyest things he does. That fellow has been hunting a while without
catching anything. Creeping, creeping on his great furry feet, making
no more sound than the shadow of the leaf on the moss; for all his
quietness he hasn't had any luck. So at last, hiding behind a bush, he
let out that screech just to start things moving. Did you notice how
quick it stopped? Well, he knew if there was any rabbit or partridge
asleep near by it would be so startled it would jump and make a noise;
and then he'd be on it before it could more than get its eyes open.
Don't you call that sly?"
The Babe merely nodded, being resolved not to interrupt.
"Good," said Uncle Andy. "You're improving a lot. Now, let me tell
you, the slyest thing of all is the Little Sly One, which those who
know everything call the lynx kitten. The Little Sly One is good
enough for us to call her, for she is even slyer when she is a she than
when he is a he. Is that quite clear?"
"Of _course_!" exclaimed the Babe.
"Well, the Little Sly One was a lonely orphan. She had had a mother
and a sister and two brothers; but a man with a dog and a gun had
happened on the mouth of the cave in which they lived. The dog had
hastily gone in. There was a terrible noise in the cave all of a
sudden, and the dog would have hastily come out again, but for the fact
that he was no longer able to come or go anywhere. When the noise had
stopped so that he could see in, the man had shot the mother lynx.
Then he had shot the dog, because that was the only thing to do. And
because he was very sorry and angry about the dog, he also shot the
lynx kittens, where they crowded, spitting savagely, at the back of the
cave. But there were only three of them at the back of the cave. The
Little Sly One, instead of bothering to spit when there were other
things more important to be done, had run up the wall and hidden in a
crevice, so still she didn't even let her tail twitch. Of course, like
all her family, she didn't really have a tail, but merely a little
blunt stub, perhaps two inches long. But that stub could have
twitched, and wanted desperately to twitch, only she would not let it.
She always seemed to think she had a tail, and, if she had had, it
would have stuck out so the man could have seen it, the crevice being
such a very small one. You see how _sly_ she was!
"Of course, the Little Sly One was lonely for the next few days, but
she was kept so busy hunting breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and
suppers that she hadn't time to fret much. She was something like a
three-quarters-grown kitten now, except for her having no tail to speak
of, and curious, fierce-looking tufts to her ears, and pale eyes so
savage and bright that they seemed as if they could look through a log
even if it wasn't hollow.
"Also, her feet were twice as big as a kitten's would have been, and
her hindquarters were high and powerful, like a rabbit's. Her soft,
bright fur was striped like a tiger's--though by the time she was grown
up it would have changed to a light, shadowy, brownish gray, hard to
detect in the dim thickets.
"The Little Sly One was so sly and so small that she had no difficulty
in creeping up on birds and woodmice, to say nothing of grasshoppers,
beetles and crickets. But one day she learned, to her great annoyance,
that she was not the only thing in the woods that could do this
creeping up. She had been watching a long time at the door of a
woodmouse burrow, under a tree, when suddenly she seemed to feel danger
behind her. Without waiting to look round, being so sly, she shot into
the air and landed on the trunk of a tree. As she madly clawed up it,
the jaws of a leaping fox came together with a snap just about three
inches behind her, just, in fact, where an ordinary tail would have
been. So, you see, her tail really saved her life, just by her not
having any!
"Well, when she was safely up the tree, of course she couldn't help
spitting and growling down at the hungry fox for a minute or two, while
he looked up at her with his mouth watering. Then, however, she curled
herself up in a crotch and pretended to go to sleep. And then the fox
went away, because he didn't know when she would wake up, and he didn't
want to wait! You see how sly she was!
"But once it happened she was not so sly as she might have been. You
see, after all, in spite of her fierce eyes, she was still only a
_kitten_ of a lynx; and she _had_ to _play_ once in a while. At such
times she would pounce on a leaf as if it were a mouse, or just tumble
all over herself pretending she had a real tail and was trying to catch
it. So, of course, when she happened to pass under a low, bushy branch
and caught sight of a slim, smooth, black tip of a tail, no bigger than
your little finger, hanging down from it, she naturally couldn't resist
the temptation. She pranced up on her hind legs and _clawed_ that
black tip of a tail--clawed it hard!
"The next instant, before she could prance away again, the _other_ end
of that slim, black tip swung out of the branch and whipped itself
round and round her body, and a black head, with sharp fangs in it, hit
her _biff, biff, biff_! on the nose. It was the tail of a black snake
she had tried to play with."
"Gee! But she wasn't sly that time!" exclaimed the Babe, shaking his
head wisely.
"The black snake wasn't poisonous, of course," continued Uncle Andy,
"but his fangs hurt the Little Sly One's nose, I can tell you. But the
worst of it was, how he could squeeze! Those black coils tightened,
tightened, till the Little Sly One, who in her first fright had set up
a terrific spitting and yowling, found she had no breath to waste on
noise. Her ribs felt as if they would crack. But, fortunately for
her, her teeth and claws were available for business. She fell to
biting, and ripping, and clawing, till the black snake realized it was
no Teddy Bear he had got hold of. For a minute or two he stood it,
squeezing harder and harder. Then he wanted to let go.
"And this, I think, was where he made a mistake. As he relaxed his
deadly coils and swung his head round, the Little Sly One struck out
with both forepaws at once, and succeeded in catching the hissing,
darting head. She caught it fairly, and her long, knife-sharp claws
sank in, holding it like a carpenter's vise. The next minute she had
her teeth in the back of the snake's neck, chewing and tearing.
"Now, the snake's tail was still around the branch, so he tried
furiously to swing the Little Sly One up and crush her against the
branch. But she was too heavy and too strong. So he came down,
instead, and thrashed wildly among the leaves, trying to get a new grip
on her. It was no use, however. He had made too big a mistake. And
the next minute he kind of straightened out. The Little Sly One had
bitten through his backbone, just behind the head.
"Well, now, you see, she had a good square meal before her. But, being
very sly, she first looked all round to see if anyone was coming to
dine with her. There was no one in sight, but she knew how curiously
things get about sometimes. So she growled, on general principles,
grabbed the snake in her teeth, and climbed up the tree so she might
eat in peace.
"The tail was no good to eat, so she bit it off and scornfully let it
drop. If that black snake hadn't had a tail, he would never have been
eaten by a kitten lynx; so the Little Sly One, as she considered this
point, and also thought of the fox, said to herself: 'Well, maybe my
tail doesn't amount to much, after all. But there doesn't seem to be
any luck in tails, anyway.'
"For all that, things in general were keeping her so very, very busy
the Little Sly One felt lonely and homesick at times. And especially
she felt the need of some kind of a nest which she could call her very
own, where she could curl herself up and go to sleep without fear of
unpleasant interruptions.
"This sort of thing, as you may imagine, was not to be found every day
of the week. Most such places had owners, and the Little Sly One was
not yet big enough and strong enough to turn the owners out. If she
_had_ been big enough-- Well, you see, she hadn't any more
conscience than just enough to get along with comfortably.
"One fine day, soon after her adventure with the black snake, her
search for a home of her own brought her out into the warm sunshine of
a little, deserted clearing. It was an old lumber camp, all grown up
with tall grass and flowering weeds. The weeds and grass crowded up
around the very threshold of the old gray log cabin.
"The Little Sly One stopped short, blinking in the strong light and
sniffing cautiously. There was no smell of danger--none whatever, but
a scent came to her nose that she thought was quite the nicest scent in
the world.
"Where did it come from? Oh, there is was--that bunch of dull-green
weeds! Forgetting prudence, forgetting everything, she ran forward and
began rolling herself over and over in ecstasy in the bed of
strong-smelling weeds."
"Catnip!" suggested the Babe.
"Of course!" agreed Uncle Andy impatiently. "What else _could_ it be?
"The Little Sly One had never heard tell of catnip, but she knew right
off it was something good for every kind of cat. When she had had
_quite_ enough of it, she felt kind of light and silly, and not afraid
of anything. So, as bold as you please, she marched right up to the
cabin.
"The door was shut. She climbed upon the roof. There was an old bark
chimney, with a great hole rotted in its base. She looked in.
"It was pleasantly shadowy inside, with a musty smell and no sign of
danger. She dropped upon a narrow shelf. From the shelf, sniffing and
glancing this way and that, she sprang to a kind of wider shelf close
under the eaves.
"That was a bunk, of course, where one of the lumbermen used to sleep,
though _she_ didn't know _that_. It was full of old dry hay, very
warmy and cozy. And the hay, as the Little Sly One observed at once,
was full of mice.
"She pounced on one at once and ate it. Decidedly, this was the place
for her. She curled herself up in the warm hay and went to sleep
without fear of any enemies coming to disturb her."
"But what would she do when the lumbermen came back?" demanded the Babe
anxiously.
"By _that_ time," answered Uncle Andy, putting away his pipe and rising
to go, "she would no longer be the _Little_ Sly One! She'd be big
enough to take care of herself--and run away as soon as she heard them
coming."