Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/203

 at my feet, with a dull, heavy thud, fell the rat. Suddenly he left the open, ran under the bed and up the wall just back of me. Tom struck at him, knocked a brass knob from the top of the bedstead, and the rat ran down the wall near the corner of the room.

“Pull the bed away, Katharine, and I’ll give him a side-wipe across the floor that’ll fetch him!”

I sent the bed spinning to the middle of the room, followed it up, and climbed to a chair. The “side-wipe” was made; it didn’t fetch him, but it did fetch down an easel and a picture.

“For pity’s sake, Tom, don’t break all the furniture in the house! Let’s go downstairs; don’t let’s kill him to-night!”

“A lot of killing you’re doing!” Tom persisted, prodding under the washstand.

“If you’re punching for that rat, he isn’t there, he’s under that couch.”

“Did you suppose I was down on all fours poking under that thing for fun? If you’d get off your perch and set that lamp down and come and pull this thing out, I’d get him here.”

“Honestly, Tom, I can’t. He might run across my feet.”

“Well, do you think I want to chase this rat all night?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, then—”