Cat and Mouse Read online

Finally old Tomgrew bored and left to investigate the hole under the lean-to. Shortlythere were scutterings and squeakings as evidence that he, too, had gotback to business.

  * * * * *

  Toward evening, Ed got to wondering how a living creature would taketransition into the other world. He had no intention of trying ithimself until he knew a lot more about it, but he thought he might beable to scare up a surrogate. Out by the wood pile some live-traps werepiled under a spruce, from the time when Ed had been catching marten forthe Fish and Wildlife to transplant. One was still in pretty fair shape.He patched it up and set it among the cottonwoods at the head of thebar, where there were some rabbit trails.

  When he went to bed it was still dark in the other world. He left thecabin door ajar so he could see it from his bed and set his shotgun,loaded with 00 buck, handy.

  Nearing sixty, Ed was not a sound sleeper, even when he had nothing onhis mind. About ten it started to get light in the other world, and thatwoke him up. He padded out to look, but there was no change, it lookedabout the same as yesterday. He went back to bed.

  The next morning there was a rabbit in the live-trap. With a pole, Edpushed the trap with the rabbit in it through into the other world andwatched. Nothing happened. After a while the rabbit began nibbling atsome spears of grass that pushed through the wire of the cage. Ed pulledit back and examined the rabbit carefully. It seemed healthy and aboutas happy as a rabbit could expect to be in a cage.

  It did not get dark in the other world till about noon, that day; andabout seven, when it was dark in both worlds, Ed heard the jangle of thetin can alarm, followed by the snap of one of the steel traps.

  He took a flashlight and found a small hoofed animal, hardly bigger thanold Tom, rearing and bucking with a broken leg in the trap. It had sharplittle spike horns, only a few inches long, but mean. Ed got severalpainful jabs before he got the animal tied up and out of the trap. Herestrung the alarm, then took his catch into the cabin to examine.

  It was herbivorous and adult, from the looks of its teeth and hoofs,though it only weighed about fifteen pounds. As an approximation, Eddecided it was female. When he killed it and opened it up, at firstglance it looked reasonably familiar, on closer study less so.

  The blood, anyway, was red; not blue or yellow or green; and the boneswere bones, just odd-shaped.

  Ed cut off a slice of heart and tossed it to old Tom. The cat sniffed itdubiously and then decided he liked it. He meowed for more. Ed gave itto him and fried a small sliver of ham. It smelled and tasted fine, butEd contented himself with a single delicate nibble, pending furtherdevelopments. Anyway, it was beginning to look like a little explorationwould be feasible.

  * * * * *

  _The Harn, also, was well-satisfied with the way things were going. Ithad been a strain to pass up the juicy little quadruped in the cage, butthe inhabitants of the other world seemed shy, and the Harn did not wishto frighten them. At least, it knew now that life could come through thehole, and the small herbivore it had herded through confirmed thatpassage in the opposite direction was equally possible--plus a gratisdemonstration of the other world's pitiful defenses. At swarming time,the whole new world would be open to embryo Harn, as well as this worldit presently occupied._

  _It looked like a really notable swarming. The Harn budded three moreplanters on the forcing stem, to be ready to take full advantage ofit._

  It got light in the other world at one in the morning that night. Ed hadthe days there pretty well pegged now. They were roughly twenty-sevenhours, of which about thirteen hours were dark. Not too high a latitude,apparently, and probably late summer by the looks of the vegetation.

  He got up a little before daylight and looked at the rabbit and old Tom.Both seemed to be doing nicely. Old Tom was hungry for more otherworldmeat. Ed gave it to him and made up a light pack. After some thought, hetook the .450 bear gun he used for back-up when guiding. Whatever he raninto over there, the .450--a model 71 throwing a 400 grain slug at 2100fps--should handle it.

  The first step through into the other world was a queasy one, but itturned out to be much the same as any other step. The only differencewas that now he was in the other world looking back. From this side, theniggerhead at the threshold was sliced sharply, but it had been kickeddown a little when he came through, and what with shoving the cagethrough and pulling it back, so that some clods of moss and dirt werescattered in the other world. For some reason, that made Ed feel better,it seemed to make the joining of the two worlds a little more permanent.

  Still, it had come sudden, and it might go sudden. Ed went back into hisown world and got an ax, a saw, more ammunition, salt, a heavy sleepingrobe, a few other possibles. He brought them through and piled them inthe other world, covering them with a scrap of old tarp. He cut a coupleof poles, peeled them, and stuck them in the ground to mark the holefrom this side.

  Then he looked around.

  He stood on the shoulder of a hill, in a game trail that ran down towarda stream below, in what seemed to be a fairly recent burn. There werecharred stumps, and the growth was small stuff, with some saplingspushing up through. There was timber in the valley below, though, and onthe hills beyond, deciduous, somewhat like oak. South was where east hadbeen in his own world, and the sun seemed smaller, but brighter. The skywas a very dark blue. He seemed lighter in this world, there was aspring in his step he had not known for twenty years. He looked at hiscompass. It checked with the direction of the sun.

  He studied the trail. It had seen a lot of use, but less in recentweeks. There were sharp hoof-prints of the animal he had caught, largerhoof-prints, vague pad-marks of various sizes, but nothing that lookedhuman. The trail went under a charred tree trunk at a height that wasnot comfortable for a man, and the spacing of the steps around thegnarled roots of an old slump did not fit a man's stride.

  He did not notice the Harn creature at all--which was understandable, itwas well camouflaged.

  He worked circumspectly down the trail, staying a little off it,studying tracks and droppings, noticing evidences of browsing on theshrubs--mostly old--pausing to examine tufts of hair and an occasionalfeather. Halfway down the slope he flushed a bird about ptarmigan-size,grayish brown in color.

  The trail was more marked where it went into the timber. It woundthrough the trees for a few hundred yards and came out on a canoe-sizedstream. Here it forked. One trail crossed the stream and went up thehill on the other side, the other followed the stream up the valley.

  * * * * *

  _The Harn followed Ed's movements, observing carefully. It needed aspecimen from the other world, and this biped would serve nicely, but itmight as well learn as much as possible about him first. It could alwayspick him up some time before he returned to his own world. Just to makesure, it sent a stinging unit to guard the entrance._

  * * * * *

  All his life, except for a short period in France, Ed had been a hunter,never hunted. Still, you don't grow old in the woods by jumping withoutlooking. Coming into a new situation, he was wary as an old wolf. Therewas a little shoulder right above the fork in the trail. He stood therefor several minutes, looking things over, and then went down and crossedthe stream at the next riffle, above the ford. By doing so, although hedid not know it, he missed the trap the Harn maintained at the ford forchance passers-by.

  On the other side of the creek, the trail ran angling off downstream,skirted a small lake hidden in the trees, climbed over another lowshoulder and dropped into a second valley. As Ed followed along it, hebegan to notice a few more signs of life--birds, small scurriers on theground and in tree tops--and this set him thinking. The country had apicked-over feel to it, a hunted and trapped-out feel, worse where hehad first come through, but still noticeable here.

  * * * * *

  _The Harn did not like to cross water, it could, but it did not liketo._ />
  * * * * *

  Ed looked at the sun. It was getting down in the sky. If there was anyactivity at all around here, the ford at dusk would be as likely a placeas any to find it. He worked back along the ridge to a point above wherehe judged the ford to be. The breeze was drawing up the valley, butfavoring the other side a little. He dropped down and crossed the streama quarter mile above the ford, climbed well above the trail and workedalong the hillside until he was in a position where he could watch boththe ford and the fork in the trail. He squatted down against a tree in acomfortable position, laid his gun across his knees, and rummaged in hispack for the cold flapjacks, wrapped around slices of duck breast, whichhe had packed for lunch.

  After he had finished eating he drank from his canteen--the water inthis world might be good, it might not, there was no point in takingchances till he could try it on the cat--and took an economical chew ofsnuff. He settled back to wait.

  _The Harn had lost Ed after he crossed the creek--it used a fallen treequite a way further up