Rob Chilson

(as yet unpublished; a part of the work in progress tentatively titled, ACROSS THE STEAMING SEA)

The end of the day was good. Dapple-gray stood looking over the Plantation, absently smoothing the fur on his chest. He was tired, but it was a good tiredness. His teeth felt satisfied, that he had done so much work. All day he and Curly-locks and their children, and Cross-Patch and Dame Trot and their children, and the others, had worked. They had cut back branches and shoots, and removed dead limbs. They had dragged off the cuttings to the canal. They had gathered the ripe eggs and sandwiches, and other fruits. At odd times they had gnawed on the old stumps of trees that had died, nibbling them down ultimately to the level of the short-grass lawns on which grew the food-bearing trees.
"Apple-seed and apple-thorn," he sang, "Johnnie Daylight blows his horn, huh. Hick-a-more Hack-a-more, Dapple-gray's done his chore, huh."
Curly-locks his mate came to him, her fur all soft brown twists, and said to him, "Dapple-gray, my teeth no longer itch for work, huh; instead, my tummy itches for food."
"My tummy also itches for food--" Dapple-gray began, but an uproar checked his Utterance before he could give the Executant of declaration.
The Gardiners turned and stared toward the edge of the Plantation, looking like so many brown or gray furry stumps. A creature came running toward the Plantation from the Haunted Wood, upright on hindlegs like themselves, but its legs were much longer and it ran very fast. Behind it came Cruelmouth the stripeycat, roaring. The Gardiners' flat tails thumped the earth in alarm.
Dapple-gray pushed Curly-locks and cried to all, "To earth, ho; to earth, to earth, earth, earth, ha!"
In a moment all were in motion, not even Cross-Patch stopping to argue. Dapple-gray lolloped as quickly as his short curved legs would take him, Curly-locks beside him, to a kiosk. It was a circle of five small flowering trees, with a thatched roof slung between them and woven walls partway down the five sides. He pushed her through the hole under one wall and looked fearfully over his shoulder, to see the creature dive into another kiosk. Then he followed Curly-locks headfirst, down the hole under the roof. He heard Cruelmouth's furious roars as she tore at the kiosk the creature had gone down.
In the burrow, it was dark after the brilliance of the sunset without. Dapple-gray caught himself on his hands at the bottom of the hole, glimpsing Curly-locks's feet kicking as she scrambled into the lateral tunnel. Extending his whiskers to feel the narrow passage, he reverted to quadruped and followed, hustling along on hands and feet.
They negotiated two more tight turns and the burrow eased, became larger. It was shored with now-dead limbs so intertwined that dirt never fell on the plastic-reeds matted on the floor. Dapple-gray's eyes had adjusted enough to see by the pale light of the glow-mold that slowly ate the dead wood.
Curly-locks paused at a crossing of tunnels, where there was room enough for him to come alongside. Here they had dug straight up, built a domed roof at the bottom of the shaft, then filled the hole above it with dirt and sharp rocks from the river. And they had left a pipe, a hollow reed with flute-holes gnawed in its projecting length, below its closed tip. Air and light and noise came down this pipe.
Noise from Cruelmouth, yelling: "Give me back the man-kin cub, ho, you Gardiners! Give her me back, ho! She went in your burrows, huh, you filthy diggers! Give her me back, ho! I am hungry, huh. Hungry, ha; hungry, hungry, hungry, ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"A man-kin, eh? Eh?" Curly-locks whispered, her brown eyes big in the dim light.
He looked back at her solemnly. They had never seen a man-kin.

###
A little later, their daughter Cushy-coo led the man-kin cub into the Big Room, where the Kingtree's mighty roots thrust down, here and there and yonder, and made a high, tight roof overhead. Other, hollow, roots here let down the fading sunset light and air and noise, from holes in the Kingtree's trunk.
Dapple-gray went to the man-kin and hesitantly sniffed. Her scent was of a female creature, too young to breed, in good health but tired and not well-fed. He sat up and looked at her, his head almost touching the roof.
She sat up too, sighing in relief; her head was higher than his. She had a long black mane on her head and very wide shoulders, so that it must have been difficult to get through the burrows.
"Phew!" she said, her voice a high piping. But her words came out more clearly than their own did from behind their big chisel teeth. "I found your hole in the knick of time, Gardiners. That cat almost got me. My name is Dolly."
Dapple-gray looked at her in perplexity. He understood her words, but her Utterances lacked Executants, so he could not know which was a question, which a declaration, or whatever. It was their instinct to ignore incomplete sentences, lest their cubs grow up speaking incoherently.
Sounding impatient, she said, "You are who, eh?"
They all looked at each other. Hesitantly Dapple-gray said, "You mean to ask us whom we may be, eh, Mistress Dolly?"
"Oh, dear, this is too bad, to have Gardiners correct one's speech, ha! I might as well be at school directly. Next I suppose the creatures will take to ordering me about, ha! You don’t know that we man-kin have ruled the Prime Mondeign for sixty million years, eh? Hmmp! Yes, heh, I politely asked your names; it's considered quite the thing where I was bred to exchange names upon meeting."
Again they found her speech hard to follow, but Curly-locks hesitantly said, "My name is Curly-locks, huh."
"And mine is Dapple-gray, huh."
"Mine is Cushy-coo, ha!" cried their offspring, snapping her teeth exuberantly.
"And mine is Dame Trot, and this is my mate, Cross-Patch, huh."
"Mistress Dolly, I am Thumbkin, ha!"
"Henny-Penny is my name, ha!"
"Daffy-down-dilly, Jack-a-Dandy, Bo-Peep, Sukey--" The offspring were naming themselves off excitedly, but she stopped them.
"Enough, ho! I shall never remember so many silly names, ha!"
Instantly they all fell silent. Dapple-gray felt as if he had crashed into a tree; he could not speak, for her command. None of them had ever been *ho*'d by a man-kin before, and waited breathlessly for the next command.
"Give her me back, ho!" roared Cruelmouth down one of the hollow roots, startling them all. She must have heard their voices and smelled Mistress Dolly, while prowling about the Plantation. "Give her me back, ho! She is mine, ha! Mine, ha! Mine, mine, mine, ha!"
With a frightened glance upward, shrinking away from the roof, Mistress Dolly cried, "You shan't, ho! You are only Gardiners, beasts, you must do as I tell you, ha. You shan’t give me back to her, ho!"
"We shall not give you back, oh," said Dapple-gray, and using the Executant of response to command for the first time to a man-kin filled him with a holy joy.
We shan't, we shan't, oh," they all murmured rapturously.

###
Dapple-gray thrust his head cautiously out of the burrow within a kiosk and looked toward the Kingtree. There was the stripeycat, prowling about and lashing her tail.
"Ha, Cruelmouth!" he cried.
She turned in an instant and pounced toward him with a roar: "Give me back the man-kin cub, ho!"
He flinched but did not duck. "We shall not, ha!"
"You shall, ho!"
"We shan't, ha!"
"Shall, ho!"
"No, ha!"
"Yes, ha!"
There was a pause; they looked at each other in the faint remaining light.
"I am hungry, huh, my tummy gripes and pinches," whined Cruelmouth. "I hunted the man-kin cub from the river, huh. She is mine, huh. Mine, ha! Give her me back, ho!"
"We cannot, huh; she has commanded us."
"I command you, ha! Give her me back, ho!"
"We need not obey you -- you are only a cat, ha!"
"Gardiner, ha! Filthy digger, ha!"
"Go away, ho, cruel-mouthed cat!"
"I will eat you instead, ha!"
Dapple-gray sank down in the burrow as Cruelmouth pounced upon the kiosk, but its trunks were close-set and well withed together. The kiosk shook and petals fell upon her from the blooms above. The stripeycat fell back, licked a bruised paw. With a final angry wordless roar, she turned away and stamped furiously off toward the Haunted Wood.
Dapple-gray watched her go, then returned to the Big Room. "She is gone, huh," he said reassuringly.
"Oh, wonderful," said Mistress Dolly. He thought that must be an exclamation, despite the lack of the exclamatory Executant. "Bring me food, ho," she said. "I am very hungry."
They went hastily to the larder and came clumsily back, carrying armfuls of eggs. Curly-locks and Dame Trot stripped the fibers from the lips of two eggs and squeezed the hinges, so that they opened like clams. They proffered the eggs to Mistress Dolly on the half-shell.
She drew back, crying, "I cannot eat eggs raw, ha! Cook them, ho!"
Their small ears flattened. "We have no fire, huh, Mistress Dolly." To refuse an order was painful, but unavoidable. "You can make fire in our fire place, eh?"
"No, heh, not without fire things. You have what else to eat, eh?"
They brought her sandwiches clumsily in their arms, crawling along the passages from the larder.
"I don't like yellow-sauce; take these back and bring me sandwiches with white sauce, ho," she cried, as soon as she saw the trade-marks that grew on the shucks.
So they brought her sandwiches with white sauce.
"Take these away, ho," she commanded. "I do not like pork flavor. Give me the beef flavor, ho. And the fish, ho."
Then she tore one up, trying to get the shucks off it, and wailed, "Help me, ho!"
She was indeed a cub. So they gathered about her to bite the blossom ends off the sandwiches and tear the shucks back, to expose the bread and meat, wrapped in the clean white inner husk.
"Faugh!" she cried, sounding disgusted. "This is still green, ha! Bring me ripe sandwiches, ho."
They had picked the sandwiches just before they came ripe, so that they would keep for a week or so. Dapple-gray looked at Cross-Patch. They were the tallest two, and could run the fastest.
"Let us go, huh," said Dapple-gray, and started out.
He was surprised that Cross-Patch followed him, but of course the man-kin had ordered them to feed her. Nothing would stop Cross-Patch from grumbling, of course: "We are to do what with a man-kin cub, eh? She does not belong here, huh. She should go back to her own kind, huh."
Dapple-gray thought about that, but could not decide. "I do not know, heh."
They went to a kiosk far across the Plantation and Dapple-gray peered out into the dimness, sniffed the cool air. No scent of cat.
"She is gone, huh."
Cautiously they slipped out, went to a sandwich tree, and carefully bit off ripe sandwiches of beef and fish, in white sauce.
She ate three of them and called for drink. They brought her tree-milk in the nut, which they had to gnaw open for her. Dame Trot brought a salad head, but she spurned it, crying, "I'm not going to eat anything you've had in your dirty mouths, ha!"
"I am forry, ha;" said Dame Trot contritely, in her emotion not speaking plainly past her teeth. "I fhould have picked it wiff my hands."
Cross-Patch went to the larder and returned with a violet fruit, carrying it carefully in his hand. Dapple-gray smelled valeriana, which they gave to their cubs, to help them sleep. That is good, he thought wearily.
He called up the hollow root to the wafflebird that slept in the hole in the Kingtree's trunk, saying, "Sing ho, wafflebird, sing a sleep song for the man-kin cub, Mistress Dolly, ho."
"I am a girl, huh," said Mistress Dolly. "Not a cub."
"I care nothing for man-kin cubs, huh," said the wafflebird. "But I shall sing for myself, huh."
"Sing a sleep song, ho!"
"I shall sing a sleep song for the chicks, huh," said the wafflebird, and sang:
"Sleep, baby, sleep, ho.
"Our tree-trunk hole is deep, oh.
"The little bird is in the blue, huh,
"His feathers all so neat and new, huh --
"Sleep, baby, sleep, ho,
"Sleep, baby, sleep, ho.
"Yes, where the woodbines creep, oh.
"When in the nest, never peck or kick, ho,
"A kind, and sweet, and gentle chick, oh;
"Sleep, baby, sleep, ho.
"I sleep, mother, sleep, oh."

And the wafflebird went murmuring drowsily on, singing to itself, a soothing background to their talk.
"You came here how, eh?" Dame Trot asked Mistress Dolly.
Mistress Dolly yawned. "I came down the river, heh."
"Be pleased to tell us more, huh," Curly-locks said.
"There's nothing to tell, stupid Gardiners, ha," said the man-kin cub angrily. "The Hunter pushed me off and I floated down the river, that is all. He put me in a gourd, that grows by the river. I am sure my Stepmama never told him to do this to me, ha. It is true she told him to take me into the forest -- but not to drown me in the river, I am sure of it, ha!"
Her voice became higher in pitch as she spoke. "I know she has never cared for me, though she does not let my Papa know. I do not know why she told the Hunter to take me into the forest. Papa was not at home -- he was not at home, for why, eh?"
Her voice had become a wail. "Papa was not at home, ha! She talked to the Hunter for a long time, very fiercely, and he looked at me. He was unhappy and he made the sign for 'no.' But she shouted at him and pointed her finger, the same as she does to me, and finally he agreed. He was upset. He took me into the woods -- his rocket gun was as long as he -- he put me in a gourd boat and pushed me down the river. All day I floated on the river, very hot, ha. And then I landed and the cat chased me-e-e. . . ."
She went off into sobs, her face becoming wet.
Awed, the Gardiners sat around her, some staring, others looking away in embarrassment. Dapple-gray did not know what to think. He felt sick and hungry and helpless and yearning all at once, as when Cruelmouth ate his children. As for what she told them, such a mess of Utterances without Executants was difficult to understand at the best of times, and Dapple-gray could make little of it.
After a long time Mistress Dolly stopped sobbing and shivered. "I am sleepy," she said in a small voice. "I am cold. I wish I had warm fur coats, as you do. You have quilts and mattresses, eh?"
"No, Mistress Dolly, heh," said Dame Trot, fluttering her hands in embarrassment.
"No, heh," said Cross-Patch, "for we never expected man-kin cubs to visit."
"I am a girl, huh," said Mistress Dolly forlornly. She curled up into a ball with her arms around herself.
"Bo-Peep, Sukey, Daffy-down-dilly, take Mistress Dolly to a sleeping cubby, ho. Curl up with her and warm her with your fur coats, ho," said Curly-locks.
Dapple-gray left them to their arrangements and slipped out quietly. At the kiosk closest to the Haunted Wood he sniffed the air and listened intently for a long time, then crawled out and tiptoed into the Wood. Presently, greatly relieved, he heard Cruelmouth's roar across the river, and knew moreover that she had killed, so he felt safe even in the dimness. He knew that no other dangerous animal lived in the Wood.
"Ghost, ha! Ghost, ha!" he called softly. "Ghost, be pleased to show yourself, huh."
No response. The Ghost had but little use for the lesser creatures. Dapple-gray reflected for a moment, then made as if to bite the sturdy trunk of one of the trees.
As he had done for Gardiner generations, the Ghost appeared. He was in the form of a glowing man-kin, all red and gold, with a gold point on his head, and a long sharp gold tooth sticking out of his hand, pointing at Dapple-gray now. "Stop, ho! To cut trees in this park is forbidden, huh!"
"Ghost, ha!" said Dapple-gray, startled despite himself. "A man-kin cub has come to live among us, huh. She is very sad, huh."
"Man-kin are always unhappy, huh. They want what they cannot have; their songs are full of eer and woe, huh."
"She is called Mistress Dolly, huh. We are to do what with her, eh?"
"You are to do nothing with a man-kin, heh. She has no parents, eh?"
Dapple-gray reflected for a moment. "'Papa' and 'Stepmama' mean what, eh?"
"Those are parents, heh. She should be sent home to her parents, huh."
"She does not know the way, huh."
"Then her parents must come to her, huh."
"They do not know she is here, huh."
"Then they must be told she is here, huh."
Dapple-gray was astonished by this suggestion. "They can be told how, eh, when they are too far to hear a voice?"
"A message must be sent to them, heh."
"But none know the way, huh."
"A force-wefkin such as myself must be sent, huh. One such as I can skim the leagues in moments and would only need a few directions, huh."
"You would go, eh?"
"I may not go, for my duty is here, unless I were commanded, heh."
"You mean that I should command you, eh?" Dapple-gray was more frightened by the suggestion than astonished; it was against nature for Gardiners to command the Ghost.
"No, heh. You are only a Gardiner, a beast of the field, huh; you cannot command me."

###
The next morning Dapple-gray went through the burrows, singing, "Hey diddle dinkety poppety pet-o, Wake yourselves and up you get, ho."
The others joined in, following him out: "Ring-a-ting tang, ding-a-dong bell-o, Stretch and yawn and off to the dell, ho."
The morning was crisp and cool and the short-grass lawns were wet with dew. The Gardiners stayed out of the long-grass meadows of the Plantation till the sun was high and the grass was dry. They had been working for quite some time before Mistress Dolly peeped cautiously out of a kiosk.
"Hey, you Gardiners, ha!"
"Yo!" all the Gardiners cried in response.
"Shhh! Quiet, ha! You'll awaken the cat."
"Oh no, Mistress Dolly, ha," said Curly-locks. "Cruelmouth sleeps early in the morning and tends her cubs later, huh. She will not bother us till evening, when it is cool and she is hungry, until she starts teaching her cubs to hunt, huh."
"You're sure it's safe to come out, eh?" Mistress Dolly asked doubtfully. "Remember: I love little Pussy, Her coat is so warm, huh; And if I don't hurt her, She'll do me no harm, huh. But I fear big Pussy, Her teeth are so white, huh; And if I don't flee her, She'll eat me tonight, huh."
"Till tonight, then, you need not fear her, heh," said Cross-Patch.
Mistress Dolly crept fearfully out and stretched in the warm sun. For a time she watched them work, and played with the younger Gardiner cubs, and ate the fruit of the Plantation trees. But presently she tired of these things and began to talk of her Papa. Then two birds flew over, calling, "Goosey, goosey gander, huh; How you do wander, huh."
She looked after them, then sat down on the grass. "I want to go home, huh!" she wailed. "I want to go ho-ome, hu-uh-uh!"
Cross-Patch came to Dapple-gray and said, "We must do something, huh. She must be sent home, huh."
"She does not know the way, huh, and neither do we."
"She cannot float back in the gourd, eh?"
"It cannot float upstream, heh, I think."
"We can do what, eh?"
"The Ghost said we should send a messenger like him, heh. But we cannot command him because we are only Gardiners, huh."
Dame Trot heard that and said, "Mistress Dolly can command him, eh?"
"I do not know, heh," said Dapple-gray, astonished, then hopeful.
"Let us ask, huh," said Cross-Patch. He looked at the man-kin cub and muttered something Dapple-gray did not hear. "She must come with us, huh," he said.
Mistress Dolly was fearful of the Haunted Wood, but followed them hesitantly. But when Dapple-gray made as if to bite a tree and the Ghost appeared, she clapped her hands in delight.
"Oh, a demon, ha! I have never seen a demon before."
The Ghost bowed to her. "My lass, I am not a demon, huh; I am a Revenant -- a servant of a lost and vanished House, huh. I may do you a service how, eh?"
"She wishes you to carry a message to her parents," said Dame Trot.
The Ghost looked at Mistress Dolly. "This is your desire, eh?"
"Yes, heh. Yes, yes, yes, ha! Ha!" Mistress Dolly jumped up and down.
"Then you must command me, huh."
Mistress Dolly looked to Dapple-gray, who did not quite understand what the Ghost meant. But she said, "Then, I command you, Revenant, go to my Papa and tell him I am here at the Gardiner plantation, ho! And he must come to me directly, ho."
The Ghost bowed to her, saying, "I go, oh. Be pleased to tell me the way, huh."
"Up the river, ha! I floated down the river in a gourd from the bridge by the tree where the gourd vines grow, ha!"
The Ghost vanished, reappeared. "I am at the bridge by the tree where the gourd vines go, huh. Now must I go which way, eh? This way -- or that way, eh?" He pointed toward the river, and away from it.
"*That* way, ha!" Mistress Dolly cried, pointing away from the river. "Follow the path through the wood to the cottage by the little stream with a little bridge, ha!"
The Ghost vanished, reappeared. "I am at the cottage by the little stream with the little bridge, huh. Now I must go where, eh?"
"You are home, ha! You must go into the cottage and find my Papa, or out in the fields or the woodlot, ha!"
"I am in the cottage and a man as brown as a nut sits in a chair, huh. A woman black as night and white as snow holds his head to her breast, huh. He is weeping, huh."
"That's my Papa, ha! Tell him I am here, ho!"
The Ghost disappeared again and was gone for many minutes. Then he reappeared and said, "Your father sends you a message, Mistress." His voice changed: "Dolly, ha! I am so happy you are alive, ha! I will come immediately -- I'll be there tomorrow, huh! Wait for me, my dearest, ho. Wait for me-- Thus ends your father's message, without a final Executant. I may do what more for you, eh?"
"Tell me when he comes, ho!" Mistress Dolly cried, leaping about like a cub.
"Cruelmouth comes, ha!" cried Cross-Patch.
The huge stripeycat, followed by her cunning cubs, was more curious than hungry, but they ran anyway and dived down their burrows.

###
Mistress Dolly resumed her play that day and was in good spirits until bedtime, when she again wept, and slept cuddled amid cubs. The next morning she was eager for her father, and went at once to the edges of the Haunted Wood to call forth the Ghost.
"Revenant, Revenant, you do see my Papa, eh?"
"No, Mistress, I do not see your Papa, heh."
Mistress Dolly broke her fast with sandwiches and apples, and went again to the edge of the forest.
"Revenant, Revenant, you do see my Papa, eh?"
"No, Mistress, I do not see your Papa, heh."
For a time she was still happy and hopeful, but later went to the forest again:
"Revenant, Revenant, you do see my Papa, eh?"
"No, Mistress, I do not see your Papa, heh."
Still she remained hopeful, though the day was long, and played and ate, and slept for a time under a fruit tree. But when she awoke the shadows were growing long and she became very anxious, saying, "My Papa is so long in coming, ha!" And she went again to call forth the Ghost.
"Revenant, Revenant, you do see my Papa, eh?"
"Yes, Mistress, he is coming through the wood even now, heh."
Mistress Dolly screamed wordlessly with delight and ran into the Haunted Wood, crying, "Papa, ha! Papa, Papa, Papa, ha! Ha!"
Dapple-gray felt as if his heart might stop. He bounded forward, crying, "Mistress Dolly, ha! No, huh; no, huh! You must not -- the cat -- it is evening -- Mistress Dolly -- Cruelmouth--"
Curly-locks and Dame Trot came lolloping hard after him, and even Cross-Patch followed, calling out to Mistress Dolly. For some moments they all ran too hard to speak. Then Dapple-gray saw the man-kin cub stop and turn back toward him.
"No, ho; the Hunter," she cried weakly, and ran away.
Dapple-gray and the Gardiners saw a woman as black as night and as white as snow, and with her was a tall green man with a stick in his hand as long as himself.
"Hunter, quickly, ho," commanded the black and white woman, and they both ran after Mistress Dolly.
"Gardiners, help me, ho," screamed the terrified little girl.
Then there came a loud wordless roar and a scream from the woman. She went down at full length with the stripeycat on her.
"Got you, ha!" roared Cruelmouth.
"Help, ho, help -- ahhh!"
The tall green man turned and pointed his long stick at Cruelmouth. A streak of glowing yellow fire came hissing from it and went through the stripeycat, and another, and another. Cruelmouth leaped off the fallen woman and was upon the man in a moment. The long stick broke with a loud crack and a puff of sharp-smelling smoke, and man and stripeycat went down together. The man pushed her off, and Cruelmouth floundered away, then fell, coughing; blood came from her nose and mouth. The man struggled, sat up, red blood running over his green.
The Ghost appeared, disappeared, reappeared, stood looking puzzled.
Mistress Dolly pressed her hands to her mouth, her eyes large and frightened, then came the pound of footsteps and a brown man came running up.
"Evelda, ha!" he cried, and fell to his knees by the snow white and night black and blood red woman.
"Ygarth," she said faintly. "Ygarth, I did it all for you. . . ." She coughed up blood, then stiffened, and Dapple-gray, creeping near, smelled death.
Mistress Dolly made a circuit around the green man, who sat moaning and wiping blood, and flung herself at the weeping brown man.
"Papa, Papa, ha! You are here, ha!"
"Dolly, Dolly, what has happened, eh? My dear Evelda is dead -- she is dead, ha! But at least you are returned to me. I do not know whether to weep or laugh, to mourn or rejoice. O my Evelda, O my Dolly, ha!"
The two hugged each other and rocked and wept. Finally the nut brown man looked up at the green one, who had staggered to his feet. "Hunter, we have partially succeeded. We have found my daughter, but we lost my wife."
"Ygarth, ha!" cried the red and green man. "I am sorry, ha! But I would never have harmed your daughter, no matter what she said -- she made me -- but I put her in a gourd--" He sat down suddenly, pressing his hands to his wounds.
"You, Hunter, eh?" said the brown man wearily. "I should have seen; I am not without blame myself. Let us tend your wounds." While they did so, he looked at the Ghost. "Revenant, you have magic that can carry my dear wife back to my cottage, eh?"
"No, heh. However, the river is near; you could drag her there and put her in a gourd, to tow her upriver, huh."
Presently the men departed, carrying the woman. Mistress Dolly went with them, holding her father's wrist and skipping at his side. She did not look back.
Dapple-gray sighed, shocked and horrified at the sights he'd seen. Yet not so shocked or horrified as when Cruelmouth ate his children, which he had often seen.
"Now her cubs will die, huh," said Curly-locks, hushed, looking at the cat.
The great stripeycat raised her head and looked blindly toward them in the fading light. "Hey, Gardiners," she said faintly.
Yo," said Dapple-gray, subdued.
"Take care -- please to take care of my cubs, huh," she said, and coughed more blood. "I die, huh -- please care -- please, my cubs, huh--"
She went into a fit of coughing, much blood coming. Her eyes closed. Then with a convulsive struggle she opened them and stared out at the pale sky beyond the Haunted Wood. "Here comes a time for cubs to be abed, huh;" she said plainly. "Here comes a chopper to chop off your head, huh."
Then Cruelmouth's head tipped to the bloody ground, her eyes closed again, and Dapple-gray smelled urine with the blood, and death.
"All her cubs will die, huh," said Curly-locks again.
"Good, huh," said Cross-Patch.
Dapple-gray wondered if the man-kin cub would survive, her mother dead too. "Come, ho," he said, and led them back to the Plantation. "It is night, huh."