Page:Wild folk - Samuel Scoville.djvu/149

Rh lightning-like snap he tried for the favorite throat-hold of the weasel-folk. He was battling, however, with one quite as quick and immeasurably more powerful. With a little bob the blackcat slipped the lead of his adversary, and the flashing teeth of the marten closed only on the loose tough skin of the fisher's shoulder. Before he could strike again the blackcat had the smaller animal clutched in its fierce claws, with no play to parry the counter-thrust of the black muzzle. In another second, the golden throat was dabbled with blood, which the fisher drank in great gulps like the weasel that he was. According to human notions, the dreadful and uncanny part of the contest was that, throughout the whole fight and the blood-stained finish, the blackcat's face was the mild, reflective, round face of a gentle dog.

His first blood-thirst slaked, the fisher slung the limp body of the marten over his shoulder with a single flirt of his black head, and winding his way up the tree trunk, cached it for a time in a convenient crotch, feeling sure that no prowler would meddle with a prey which bore upon its pelt the scent and seal of the blackcat.

All through a two-day snowstorm, the fisher had kept to his tree, and his first kill that night only sharpened the blood-lust which swept raging through his tense body. Following the nearest runway, he came to the shore of a wide, rapid, little forest river, which at this point had a fall which insured current enough to keep it from freezing. Near its bank, the ranging blackcat came upon a fresh track in the