[Illustration:  “The Cat and the Skunk”]

Tooth and claw and deadly grip—­the old Cat raged and tore, the black fur flew in every direction, and the Skunk for once lost her head and fired random shots of choking spray that drenched herself as well as the Cat.  The Skunk’s head and neck were terribly torn.  The air was suffocating with the poisonous musk.  The Skunk was desperately wounded and threw herself backward into the water.  Blinded and choking, though scarcely bleeding, the old Cat would have followed even there, but the Kitten, wedged under the log, mewed piteously and stayed the mother’s fury.  She dragged it out unharmed but drenched with musk and carried it quickly to the den in the hollow log, then came out again and stood erect, blinking her blazing eyes—­for they were burning with the spray—­lashing her tail, the image of a Tigress eager to fight either part or all the world for the little ones she nursed.  But the old Skunk had had more than enough.  She scrambled off down the canon.  Her three young ones had tumbled over each other to get out of the way when they got that first accidental charge of their mother’s battery.  She waddled away, leaving a trail of blood and smell, and they waddled after, leaving an odour just as strong.

[Illustration:  “The old Cat raged and tore”]

Yan was thrilled by the desperate fight of the heroic old Cat.  Her whole race went up higher in his esteem that day; and the fact that the house Cat really could take to the woods and there maintain herself by hunting was all that was needed to give her a place in his list of animal heroes.

Pussy walked uneasily up and down the log, from the hole where the Kittens were to the end overlooking the canon.  She blinked very hard and was evidently suffering severely, but Yan knew quite well that there was no animal on earth big enough or strong enough to frighten that Cat from her post at the door of her home.  There is no courage more indomitable than that of a mother Cat who is guarding her young.

At length all danger of attack seemed over, and Pussy, shaking her paws and wiping her eyes, glided into her hole.  Oh, what a shock it must have been to the poor Kittens, though partly prepared by their brother’s unsavoury coming back.  There was the mother, whose return had always been heralded by a delicious odour of fresh Mouse or bird, interwoven with a loving and friendly odour of Cat, that was in itself a promise of happiness.  Scent is the main thing in Cat life, and now the hole was darkened by a creature that was rank with every nasal guarantee of deadly enmity.  Little wonder that they all fled puffing and spitting to the dark corners.  It was a hard case; all the little stomachs were upset for a long time.  They could do nothing but make the best of it and get used to it.  The den never smelt any better while they were there, and even after they grew up and lived elsewhere many storms passed overhead before the last of the Skunk smell left them.