1、 among his kind; he had stumbled upon the house of a brother, and the brother was not at home, and he was glad.He returned to the Cat, and stooped stiffly and stroked his back, which the animal arched like the spring of a bow.Then he took up the rabbit and looked at it eagerly by the firelight. His

2、jaws worked. He could almost have devoured it raw. He fumbled the Cat close at his heels around some rude shelves and a table, and found, with a grunt of self-gratulation, a lamp with oil in it. That he lighted; then he found a frying-pan and a knife, and skinned the rabbit, and prepared it for cook

3、ing, the Cat always at his feet.When the odour of the cooking flesh filled the cabin, both the man and the Cat looked wolfish. The man turned the rabbit with one hand and stooped to pat the Cat with the other. The Cat thought him a fine man. He loved him with all his heart, though he had known him s

4、uch a short time, and though the man had a face both pitiful and sharply set at variance with the best of things.It was a face with the grimy grizzle of age upon it, with fever hollows in the cheeks, and the memories of wrong in the dim eyes, but the Cat accepted the man unquestioningly and loved hi

5、m. When the rabbit was half cooked, neither the man nor the Cat could wait any longer. The man took it from the fire, divided it exactly in halves, gave the Cat one, and took the other himself. Then they ate.Then the man blew out the light, called the Cat to him, got on the bed, drew up the ragged c

6、overings, and fell asleep with the Cat in his bosom.The man was the Cats guest all the rest of the winter, and winter is long in the mountains. The rightful owner of the little hut did not return until May. All that time the Cat toiled hard, and he grew rather thin himself, for he shared everything

7、except mice with his guest; and sometimes game was wary, and the fruit of patience of days was very little for two. The man was ill and weak, however, and unable to eat much, which was fortunate, since he could not hunt for himself. All day long he lay on the bed, or else sat crouched over the fire.

8、 It was a good thing that fire-wood was ready at hand for the picking up, not a stones-throw from the door, for that he had to attend to himself.The Cat foraged tirelessly. Sometimes he was gone for days together, and at first the man used to be terrified, thinking he would never return; then he wou

9、ld hear the familiar cry at the door, and stumble to his feet and let him in. Then the two would dine together, sharing equally; then the Cat would rest and purr, and finally sleep in the mans arms.Towards spring the game grew plentiful; more wild little quarry were tempted out of their homes, in se

10、arch of love as well as food. One day the Cat had luck a rabbit, a partridge, and a mouse. He could not carry them all at once, but finally hehad them together at the house door. Then he cried, but no one answered. All the mountain streams were loosened, and the air was full of the gurgle of many wa

11、ters, occasionally pierced by a bird-whistle. The trees rustled with a new sound to the spring wind; there was a flush of rose and gold-green on the breasting surface of a distant mountain seen through an opening in the wood. The tips of the bushes were swollen and glistening red, and now and then t

12、here was a flower; but the Cat had nothing to do with flowers. He stood beside his booty at the house door, and cried and cried with his insistent triumph and complaint and pleading, but no one came to let him in. Then the cat left his little treasures at the door, and went around to the back of the

13、 house to the pine-tree, and was up the trunk with a wild scramble, and in through his little window, and down through the trap to the room, and the man was gone.The Cat cried again that cry of the animal for human companionship which is one of the sad notes of the world; he looked in all the corner

14、s; he sprang to the chair at the window and looked out; but no one came. The man was gone and he never came again.The Cat ate his mouse out on the turf beside the house; the rabbit and the partridge he carried painfully into the house, but the man did not come to share them. Finally, in the course o

15、f a day or two, he ate them up himself; then he slept a long time on the bed, and when he waked the man was not there.Then the Cat went forth to his hunting-grounds again, and came home at night with a plump bird, reasoning with his tireless persistency in expectancy that the man would be there; and

16、 there was a light in the window, and when he cried his old master opened the door and let him in.His master had strong comradeship with the Cat, but not affection. He never patted him like that gentler outcast, but he had a pride in him and an anxiety for his welfare, though he had left him alone a

17、ll winter without scruple. He feared lest some misfortune might have come to the Cat, though he was so large of his kind, and a mighty hunter. Therefore, when he saw him at the door in all the glory of his glossy winter coat, his white breast and face shining like snow in the sun, his own face lit u

18、p with welcome, and the Cat embraced his feet with his sinuous body vibrant with rejoicing purrs.The Cat had his bird to himself, for his master had his own supper already cooking on the stove. After supper the Cats master took his pipe, and sought a small store of tobacco which he had left in his h

19、ut over winter. He had thought often of it; that and the Cat seemed something to come home to in the spring. But the tobacco was gone; not a dust left. The man swore a little in a grim monotone, which made the profanity lose its customary effect. He had been, and was, a hard drinker; he had knocked

20、about the world until the marks of its sharp corners were 5on his very soul, which was thereby calloused, until his very sensibility to loss was dulled. He was a very old man.He searched for the tobacco with a sort of dull combativeness of persistency; then he stared with stupid wonder around the room. Suddenly many featur