Page:Hunting and trapping stories; a book for boys (IA huntingtrappings00pric).pdf/112

 good care of them. All switches were put away and they were never teased. They soon grew sleek and plump. gradually lost their fierceness, and would come out to be petted, behaving like overgrown cats.

One afternoon they both got out of their cage, and, the day being chilly, they marched into the house. The boy, who was upstairs, heard shrieks coming from the Chinese cook who had climbed up on the kitchen table for safety's sake. As soon as the boy saw what was the matter he whistled his usual call and the ocelots went bounding toward him. He gave them both a bowl of milk and put them back into their cage. After that he thought he might as well let them out again as they had behaved so well the first time, and it soon became a noon-day sport to have the beautiful creatures running about. The cow-boys made great pets of the pair and played with them at all hours. The ocelots grew so tame that they never tried to bite anyone, only snarling at meal times.

One day while the two were sunning themselves in the yard a large dog came in. It spied the two ocelots and thinking it had a pair of large sized tom cats to deal with, ran at them, barking loudly. In an instant the ocelots were changed; all their purr and good nature vanished and they sprang at their enemy who yelped and tried to get away. After the dust of the battle had cleared it was found that the two ocelots had literally clawed the dog to pieces. It was hours before they got over their excitment, and they prowled up and down their cage all night as if expecting other enemies.

Months passed after the dog incident without anything of note happening until one night the ocelots got away on a prowling escapade again. Now the country side had been much troubled with coyotes or prarie wolves, who, as you know, are very troublesome thieves. Numerous poison traps had been set but without much success. The two ocelots came across some of the poisoned bait. Luckily for them the bait had been exposed for a long time and the poison had lost a good deal of its power. However, the two beasts gobbled the meat up and in consequence were only able to crawl a few yards from the trap, and there lay in a stupor looking as if they were dead.

When the boy went to feed them in the early morning he found them missing, so he had a couple of horses saddled, and calling to a cow-boy to go with him, started off in search of the truants. It was not an uncommon thing for him to have to go and hunt for his troublesome pets in this fashion, so he was not at all anxious. They struck the ocelots' trail and soon came across the bodies lying near the trap, and the poisoned bait gone. They