Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/201

 I secretly believed it to be a wildcat; it was such a monster, with the face of a fiend, eyes of fire, and waving the big bushy tail of a squirrel.

“I’d shoot him,” Tom said, rather indifferently, “but my shotgun is in the barn, and just to-day I fired the last cartridge from my revolver.”

“Get my rifle,” I cried, swelling with pride. A friend visited us a year ago, a fine sportsman, who came with four guns, and when he left he gave me a lovely little rifle.

“Where is it?”

“Downstairs in the dining-room.”

“All right!” and off he started with the lamp.

“No, you don’t and leave me here in the dark with this hideous thing!”

“Such a coward!” but he gave up the lamp, and went blundering off in the darkness. After what seemed an age, he returned, remarking with some bravado, as he loaded up: “Now, my bold outlaw, your hour has come!”

I held the lamp; he fired. There was no effect whatever.

“I thought you said his hour had come!”

”It has, if he’ll stay there long enough and the ammunition holds out.”

Twice again he shot, and then the “thing” ran down a rafter and was hidden from us by the canopy above the dais.