Swamp Cat Part 20

"They'll get you for it, Luke."

Luke's grin widened. "Ye know better'n that. Ye know well's I do that more'n one man lies in these deep sand sloughs, my own pappy 'mongst 'em, an' a Gates put him thar. Ye allus mess 'round this swamp, an'

what'll folks think when ye jest don't come out?"

"You're putting your head in a noose!"

"No I hain't, Gates. No I hain't. An' ye did hit me. n.o.body hits Luke Trull an'," he chuckled, "I thought ye'd be in the swamp after ye saw my hat. How do you like it, Gates? Made it myself with two pelts f'om your swamp."

"You're talking like an idiot!"

"Idiot? I got thirty fi' o' your mushrats so far an' fo' here," he indicated the packsack. "Now I see that I got me 'nother in the hollow tree. I'll let ye see me pull it out an' kill it, Gates, afore I roll ye in the slough an' let ye sink in the deep sand."

He walked toward and bent near the hollow sycamore while Andy made a mighty effort to loose his bonds. He strained, felt the flexible wire give, and knew that he could free himself. If he could only do it in time . . .

He saw Luke pull at the taut wire and heard a spitting snarl. Fury incarnate, Frosty came out of the hollow and sprang straight to Luke's head. He clawed and scratched while he continued to spit.

Luke stood up, waved his hands like windmill blades, lost his footing, and tumbled backwards into the slough. Andy gasped, continuing to strain at the wire that bound him, even while he remained unable to take his eyes from the drama being enacted before his eyes. The slough was quicksand, and as far as Andy knew, it was bottomless. But a good swimmer, even a fully clothed one, who knew what he was doing could cross it safely. Andy sighed in relief.

Luke was a good swimmer, and obviously he both realized his danger and knew what he was doing. Only the muskrat-skin hat, leaving a trailing V-curl behind it, broke water as he dog-paddled very slowly and very cautiously. He would make it all right.

The thing that came did so with uncanny silence. A great horned owl that had not been there a second before was there now, hovering over what could be nothing except a swimming muskrat. It struck, and rose with Luke's hat in its talons. Then it was gone.

Andy struggled frantically to free himself, but each second was an hour long and each minute a day. Finally working bleeding hands from the wire, he loosed his legs and rose. The slough was empty, with not even a ripple to show that anything had ever been on it. After two minutes, Andy turned toward Frosty, who growled warningly but let his partner depress the trap spring and free his paw.

Frosty fell to cleaning himself. With a prayer in his heart, again Andy searched the slough. But all he saw was a pair of swimming muskrats. At least two had survived, just as two must have survived in other sloughs.

The muskrats paid no attention to death, for their function was life.

They would build houses, dig dens, and eventually they would overspread the swamp.

The muskrats dived and only bubbles rose.

JIM KJELGAARD

was born in New York City. Happily enough, he was still in the pre-school age when his father decided to move the family to the Pennsylvania mountains. There young Jim grew up among some of the best hunting and fis.h.i.+ng in the United States. He says: "If I had pursued my scholastic duties as diligently as I did deer, trout, grouse, squirrels, etc., I might have had better report cards!"

Jim Kjelgaard has worked at various jobs--trapper, teamster, guide, surveyor, factory worker and laborer. When he was in the late twenties he decided to become a full-time writer. He has succeeded in his wish.

He has published several hundred short stories and articles and quite a few books for young people.

His hobbies are hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, dogs, and questing for new stories. He tells us: "Story hunts have led me from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic Circle to Mexico City. Stories, like gold, are where you find them. You may discover one three thousand miles from home or, as in _The Spell of the White Sturgeon_, right on your own door step." And he adds: "I am married to a very beautiful girl and have a teen-age daughter. Both of them order me around in a shameful fas.h.i.+on, but I can still boss the dog! We live in Phoenix, Arizona."