From the upper air,--apparently from nowhere,--a huge shaggy body
launched itself straight downward. As unerringly as the swoop of
an eagle, the down-whizzing bulk flew. It smote the leaping
wildcat, in mid-flight.
A set of mighty jaws,--jaws that could crack a beef-bone as a man
cracks a filbert,--clove deep and unerringly into the cat's back,
just behind the shoulders. And those jaws flung all their
strength into the ravening grip.
A squall,--hideous in its unearthly clangor,--split the night
silences. The maddened cat whirled about, spitting and yowling;
and set its foaming teeth in the dog's fur-armored shoulder. But
before the terrible curved claws could be called into action,
Lad's rending jaws had done their work upon the spine.
To the verge of the narrow ledge the two combatants had rolled in
their unloving embrace. Its last lurch of agony carped the
stricken wildcat over the edge and out the ninety-foot drop into
the ravine. Lad was all-but carried along with his adversary. He
clawed wildly with his toes for a purchase on the smooth cliff
wall; over which his hindquarters had slipped.
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