By all we knew of
Folk nature he should have remained and had out his
rage. I crept to the entrance and peeped down. I could
see him just beginning to mount the bluff again. In
one hand he carried a long stick. Before I could
divine his plan, he was back at the entrance and
savagely jabbing the stick in at us.
His thrusts were prodigious. They could have
disembowelled us. We shrank back against the
side-walls, where we were almost out of range. But by
industrious poking he got us now and again--cruel,
scraping jabs with the end of the stick that raked off
the hide and hair. When we screamed with the hurt, he
roared his satisfaction and jabbed the harder.
I began to grow angry. I had a temper of my own in
those days, and pretty considerable courage, too,
albeit it was largely the courage of the cornered rat.
I caught hold of the stick with my hands, but such was
his strength that he jerked me into the crevice. He
reached for me with his long arm, and his nails tore my
flesh as I leaped back from the clutch and gained the
comparative safety of the side-wall.
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