Summoning all his strength for the effort, he rose to his feet and with every hair abristle, short stubby tail erect as a flagpole, white teeth gleaming in long strong jaws, he stalked stiffly forward, then charged.
The wildcat, crouched for the leap, his brain on fire with the hate which for the moment had conquered his fear, shot forward and upward as though propelled by a catapult. Set on hair-trigger as he was, nothing could have stopped him; for an infinitesimal fraction of a second it seemed that Rusty's desperate attack had been launched too late. It had, indeed, come too late to forestall the cat's assault; but the terrier's swift and sudden advance cut in half the distance between the two antagonists, and the lynx's muscles had been keyed to drive his body forward that distance and not an inch less. So when he leaped he leaped too high and too far; and at the very instant when the terrier's legs gave way under him and he crumpled on the sand, the long tawny body of the cat flashed over him, one hind claw raking his head.
Slowly the dog, his forehead streaming with blood, struggled to his feet and faced about on tottering legs to meet the furious charge which he expected. Ten yards away across the sands he saw his foe racing with long bounds toward the green wall of jungle beyond the low sand hills of the upper beach. Once and once only the lynx looked
