Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/202

 At this the brave lady was encouraged to mount to the top of her bureau and try to locate him. With lamp in hand, she peered into the shadows.

“Wait! I’ll fix him!”

Going into the next room, Tom came back armed with one of the parts of the quilting-frame we found here when we came.

“Now then, just about where is he?”

“Close against the side wall.”

The quilting-frame cut a wide swath of air, and struck—solid wood. Running straight up the rafter just over my head came the “thing,”—a poor frightened rat!

“Now, Tom, you hold the light and I’ll show you some Buffalo Bill marksmanship.” Drawing my trusty rifle to my shoulder, I shut both eyes, and fired.

“That was a hot shot, Katharine!—he must have winked his other eye at that!” He snatched the smoking weapon from my hand and fired again. The rat humped his back, waved his tail lazily, and looked down upon us so dreamily that I really thought he would be asleep in another minute.

“I guess we’ll lay aside our firearms,” Tom said, “as we have already shot five holes through the roof. He is too much in the shadows; we can never hit him. I’ll see if I can’t punch him out of there with this.” Mounting my bed with that frame, he threw it like a harpoon; it went flying through the room, and down