was squatting on my hams over the litter--seven sturdy, blind little
beggars--when from behind came a bray of trumpets and crash of brass.
There was a rush, like the wind-squall that kicks the heels of the rain,
and I was midway to my feet when knocked flat on my face. At the same
instant I heard Klooch sigh, very much as a man does when you've planted
your fist in his belly. You can stake your sack I lay quiet, but I
twisted my head around and saw a huge bulk swaying above me. Then the
blue sky flashed into view and I got to my feet. A hairy mountain of
flesh was just disappearing in the underbrush on the edge of the open. I
caught a rear-end glimpse, with a stiff tail, as big in girth as my body,
standing out straight behind. The next second only a tremendous hole
remained in the thicket, though I could still hear the sounds as of a
tornado dying quickly away, underbrush ripping and tearing, and trees
snapping and crashing.

"I cast about for my rifle. It had been lying on the ground with the
muzzle against a log; but now the stock was smashed, the barrel out of
line, and the working-gear in a thousand bits. Then I looked for the
slut, and--and what do you suppose?"

I shook my head.

"May my soul burn in a thousand hells if there was anything left of her!
Klooch, the seven sturdy, blind little beggars--gone, all gone. Where
she had stretched was a slimy, bloody depression in the soft earth, all
of a yard in diameter, and around the edges a few scattered hairs."

I measured three feet on the snow, threw about it a circle, and glanced
at Nimrod.