I was badly frightened—there is no use denying it—but I did succeed in keeping my wits about me. In the open, of course, I was no match for her. Her springs were of tremendous length, far greater than mine, for a cat—like all her tribe—can travel at tremendous speed for a short distance. Aware of this, I turned sharp back through the hedge to my right—only just in time, for her cruel teeth snapped not an inch from my brush as I dived through the heart of the hedge. Being smaller than she, I gained a few yards in the passage through the close-set branches, and tore off across the frozen snow at top speed towards the nearest tree. There was no time to pick or choose; I had to take the first that came, and here luck was against me, for it was a tall but slender birch which happened to stand some little distance apart, the nearest tree to it being a beech some fifty feet away. Up I went with a rush, again missing death by a sort of miracle, for my enemy launched herself at me like a shot from a catapult, striking the bark not the length of my body below my brush. She clung there a moment, and then fell back with a baffled snarl, and for a moment I thought she had given it up. But I suppose she was very hungry, or perhaps too enraged at her first failure to abandon the chase, for the next moment she drew off a few yards, and, coming at the tree with a rush, clattered up it, her sharp talons ringing against the rough bark. Naturally my first impulse was to run out towards the beech and jump into it. Could I have done this I should have been safe, for the cat would have had to return to the ground in order to reach the beech-tree. But when I gained the outer end of the birch branch I found to my horror that the gap was full three yards—a terrible jump to risk at any time, but almost certainly fatal if I missed my footing, for before I could recover myself the hungry brute would most infallibly have leaped down upon me. Now I was in a tight place indeed, for already the lithe, grey form of my cruel foe was stealing out along the branch to which I clung, her heavier body causing it to sway and vibrate beneath me. It seemed as though I must take the jump, and chance it. Suddenly I noticed that the cat had stopped. She was lying close along the branch, her hungry eyes glaring at me, her pink tongue slowly licking her lips. It was clear that she was afraid that if she came further the bough would not bear her weight.