PART ONE : THE KITTEN










Chapter 1


My name is Nathaniel J. Claw and I am the Captain of a loyal and resourceful crew of cats 
who are dedicated to the struggle against the pirate dogs on the Cocker Spaniel Main. This 
is my story. I was born one of a litter of seven. Seven is a lucky number for cats, much as 
nine is, and I was the seventh son of a seventh son, which has always been considered a 
magical combination.

From the start, then, my family expected great things from me. The only thing that 
disappointed them was my colour. My mother was a sealpoint Himalayan; my father was a 
shaded silver Persian. My paternal grandfather, however, was a common grey alley cat. It 
was my grandfather who had all the courage, however, and he was a terrific street fighter in 
his day. He still knows a few tricks with claw and fang to deter an impertinent youth from 
taking over a piece of the alley! I am the spitting image of my grandfather, Tom Cattington. I 
am a grey cat with no distinguishing marks, except for a white star at the tip of my tail. There 
is an old saying that all cats are grey in the dark, but I am grey in all of the Nineworlds, 
whether in sunlight or in darkness. It can be a useful characteristic actually, especially when 
setting up an ambush for a pack of dishonest dogs. The earliest days of my youth were 
spent on the docks, where my uncle built ships for Her Majesty's navy. This uncle of mine 
had the reputation of having been a bit of a rogue in his own youth, but he had taken his ill-
gotten gains and apparently invested them in a very reputable business, and had obtained a 
charter from the Queen to build and outfit all ships leaving our island. It was from my uncle 
that I learned how to sail and chart a course by the stars. The Great Cat in the North, with 
the PoleCat Star at the tip of his tail is the one to follow when all maps are lost, and I 
learned that lesson well. It saved my life and the life of my Crew on our ill-fated adventure 
round the Cape of Good Happenstance. But I digress a little. I learned the art of sailing and 
the art of fighting on the docks as a young cat, and I probably would have joined the 
Queen's Navy if circumstances had been different. Unfortunately, my father had made a 
powerful enemy in Lord Balfour when he stole my mother from under his whiskers and 
eloped with her. Lord Balfour had never forgiven him. When a chance arose to discredit 
him with the Queen, Lord Balfour leapt to it and accused him falsely of treason, forging 
documents that allegedly proved my family's disloyalty to the Crown. The sheriffs arrived 
one stormy morning to impound our property and my father met them at the gate, sword in 
hand. He fell to a barrage of gunfire, and I, a mere lad still, took up the sword which lay 
next to his bleeding corpse and sought to avenge his honour then and there. I would have 
died in the process, no doubt, rash and inexperienced as I was, if my uncle had not grabbed 
me by the scruff of my neck and spirited me away, kicking and protesting. He threw me into 
the care of his shipmaster, and off I went, quite ungraciously, to escape the Queen's wrath 
by embarking upon the first voyage of my life.











Chapter 2


I was not grateful to my uncle, I have to confess. Although I was keen on the idea of going 
to sea and having adventures, my soul was consumed with the desire to take vengeance on 
Lord Balfour, the cat responsible for my father's death. Apart from this, I was horribly 
seasick for the first three days. A miserable cat indeed, hardly the dashing figure I would 
like to have been! After I 'got my sea legs' and recovered from my bout of seasickness, I 
was treated like any other new sailor and put to work scrubbing the decks. I was deeply 
offended by this, and resolved to jump ship at the first opportunity. Now, of course, I 
realise that he behaved both wisely and properly in showing no special favour to a young, 
arrogant cat who thought he had very little to learn! I have to say that if I have become a 
decent Captain, most of the credit is due to my uncle. The biggest difference between my 
Uncle and his brother, my own father, was the fact that my Uncle was a merchant, and 
loved nothing better than a good bargain, or making a hefty profit on a commercial 
transaction. My father was a traditional aristocat, on the other hand, and did not feel that 
any member of our family should soil his hands or his spirit with 'filthy lucre.' He tried to instil 
the same attitudes in me, but quite honestly, I did not see much virtue in living in a castle 
where all of the walls were crumbling and the ceilings sprang a hundred new leaks every 
time a heavy storm hit, simply because my father was too stubborn to change with the times. 
After all, many aristocats in our time have restored their fortunes through acute business 
sense. How can it be more honourable for a noblecat to marry a feline female with a fortune 
than to earn ones riches through honest labour? Consequently, I always secretly admired my 
clever Uncle who brought exotic gifts from faraway lands to his favourite nephew when he 
visited our home, and did not understand my father's continuing refusal to go into 
partnership with his brother. My father was dead, however, and the ancestral home had 
been put to the torch by a group of thugs hired by Lord Balfour. I hated the menial labour 
my Uncle insisted on assigning me, but the truth of the matter was that I was off to a good 
start in the fine art of making a profit. 

'Sell to the birds?' my father scoffed, laughing heartily. 'One doesn't enter into financial 
transactions with one's dinner!' 'These birds have a lot of power and even more money,' my 
Uncle retorted. 'You are a hundred years behind the times. The Longbarrow Birds are one 
of the largest cartels in the South Pacific, and they spend freely in order to impress the 
world with their newfound wealth and power. They have no qualms at spending a fortune on 
rare seed for a banquet, and that is one of the easiest cargos I can think of carrying. Weighs 
next to nothing in the hold, and no pirate will target our ship for a cargo of birdseed!' 'You 
are out of your mind!' my father laughed. 'What next?' 'Come into partnership with me. This 
castle needs a new roof, and I know that the harvest was very poor this year.' 'I am a 
gentleman, not a merchant,' my father replied, with quiet (and possibly foolish) dignity. 'If 
you choose to forget the blue blood running through our veins, I will never do so.' 'Our own 
father was a common alley tom!' my uncle retorted. 'No, you know better than that! He was 
considered so, by our Queen, because he was of the old Catswold Clan. But the Catswold 
Clan were kings of the North before the Ironcat invasion, and the blood ran pure in his 
veins.' 'Well, blue blood won't patch up a leaking roof, brother,' my uncle replied with a 
heavy sigh. 'Your pride will be your undoing one day.' 

He spoke prophetically. If my father had not been so proud, he would not have earned the 
enmity of Lord Balfour, who resented the Catwold Clan and its ancient heritage. Lord 
Balfour was of the merchant class originally, but with a series of judicious loans to the 
Crown, managed to insinuate himself into a title, and bit by bit, bought up all of the lands in 
our province. My father alone refused to sell to him. He became a thorn in Balfour's side, as 
our land bordered on the Felion River, which was the main artery of commerce from here to 
the capital. Without access to the river, Balfour was doomed to play an increasingly small 
role in providing the capital with goods. He would not accept my father's refusal, however, 
and in the end, my father died for his pride and for a castle that was a safety hazard for its 
inhabitants. 
							
Chapter 3


Apart from the wretched state of seasickness which the Lords of Mischance visited upon 
me, our journey to the South Pacific passed without any untoward incident. We docked in 
due course at the Port of St. Caw, and were met by a most distinguished delegation of 
birds. The whole business was peculiar to say the least: a shipload of cats being met by a 
group of nervous birds, who were determined to show only the best of manners, and not to 
give any hint of their natural terror. The fashions of the BarrowLands were about fifty years 
behind ours, and the Longbarrow birds were bewigged and powdered in the manner of my 
own grandfather's generation. If you have never seen a pelican wearing a curled wig, 
staggering about on platformed court shoes, you can have no real idea of how hilarious the 
sight was to our entire crew. We made a great show of grooming our whiskers in order to 
conceal the smiles we could not control. To his credit, my uncle managed to behave with all 
of the decorum the transaction merited. After all, we exchanged a few sackfuls of birdseed 
for a cargohold of treasure in gold, silver and gems. My uncle, a true merchant, did not even 
show curiosity as to the provenance of the treasure we received from the Barrow Birds, but 
I had retained the lively curiosity which has more than once been the death of members of 
our species, and has even been immortalised in a nursery saw, to wit: 'Curiosity killed the 
cat!' In fact, an idle remark to the maid who was airing out our rooms elicited the answer to 
the mystery and my uncle subsequently cursed me roundly for having uncovered a fact that 
was to bring him much misery. 

'The treasure?' the maid replied, struggling to turn a straw mattress. (For obvious reasons, 
there were no proper feather mattresses on the Islands, but a cat can sleep in comfort in 
almost any position anywhere.) 'Why, the Islands are filled with treasure!' she continued. 
'These are the BarrowLands, after all!' I had thought Barrow to refer to the rather lowly 
class of merchant known as 'barrow boy', but apparently it described something that had 
more to do with my people than with hers. 'They are haunted, you know,' she told me with 
relish. 'Otherwise, after all of these years, there would be nothing left of the treasure. But 
only a few birds will venture forth to rob the ancient graves. Usually it's the Vulture Gang, 
although more often than not you can find them in gaol. It's their nature, you know. Picking 
over the carcasses of the dead... Begging your pardon, Sir. A Vulture youth once took a 
fancy to me, but my mum carried on so, you would have thought he was the Foul One 
himself. Just as well. He was hanged last month in the Courtyard of Justice. Do you like to 
watch a good hanging, Sir? There are two scheduled tomorrow. Our governor held off on 
them, seeing as we were expecting guests, thinking you might enjoy the entertainment of 
watching a couple of felons swing.' 'Good heavens, no!' I stammered, then wondered if 
perhaps my natural revulsion would be considered rudeness. I quickly added, 'What can 
you tell me about the Barrows?''It's your sort, really,' she confided. 'But it has been at least 
a thousand years or so since any warriors lived on these Islands. The barrows were built for 
the heroes of the Jaguar Clan, and they simply heaped treasure upon treasure over the 
bodies of the dead. You have no idea! I saw one of them once -- the Barrows, I mean. A 
robber had opened it up, but had run off and left everything behind. Could be that he saw a 
ghost. Anyway, I was with my young gentleman, you know. We were, um, well, you know 
what it's like. And we happened upon this Barrow. There was so much gold and it was 
shining so bright it just about blinded us both! Gold bars and plates and jewels winking at us 
like a thousand eyes. It was really something, Sir. You ought to have seen it. Then the 
governor's soldiers came round and shut it up again, shovelled earth on top of all the pretty 
jewels and slung the stones on top of it again. I reckon they took their share first, 
though.'Although I attended to her ramblings with half an ear, my mind was racing. The 
Jaguar Clan indeed were 'our sort'; they were the illustrious ancestors of our own family, 
and a few of their most intrepid warriors had sailed across half the world in longships, 
adventuring and exploring. They finally settled in our own Northern Island, where they ruled 
as overlords over the natives for many centuries. This was part of our earliest history, but 
every schoolkit learned the epics of the Jaguar Clan, and their exploits had become the stuff 
of dreams.
							
Chapter 4


	It was while we were returning from that voyage that my Uncle fell ill.
	At first it did not seem serious, but as days passed his condition worsened. Very 
soon he was too weak even to get up from his bed, and I sat by him all day, hoping against 
hope that he would recover. I had lost my father, I could not lose him too, not now that I 
realized how much I loved him. After a while he gave up eating, and started becoming 
delirious. All day long he talked to my father and the rest of his five brothers, all of whom 
were dead. He seemed to be somewhere else, dreaming a dream that was no doubt as real 
to him as the roaring sea was to us. In front of my very eyes I watched as he thinned so 
much it seemed he had shrunk over the past few days. One night, after I had given him his 
medicine and he had gone to sleep, I was sleeping in the chair by his bed when his voice 
woke me.
  'Nathaniel,' he called. His voice was tireder than ever, and bore no resemblance to the 
one I knew, but at that moment he was more conscious than he had ever been in the past 
few weeks. He was no longer dreaming, and his eyes were fully focused. In a swish of a tail 
I was by his side, once again a mere lad on the verge of tears, as the horror I had felt on 
losing my father returned.
  'Uncle --'
  'I'm dying, Nathaniel.'
	I wanted to grab his paw and shout out, No, no, I'm not going to let you die, not 
after all you've done for me, but words stuck in my throat; all I could do was cry.
  'You'll become a great cat one day, Nathaniel. Even greater than your grandfather, and 
that is saying something. Everything I have is yours. I love you' His voice shivered 
as he spoke his last words, then, slowly, his eyes closed in that sleep of peace that meets all 
of us in the end. I held his paw and cried my eyes out, but he was dead, and nothing would 
bring him back.
	We docked back in the harbour of St. Pierre two days later, where his funeral took 
place. It was well attended, and he was buried like a true sailor. It was as the coffin 
disappeared in the soil that the truth struck me like a lightning bolt out of a blue sky; I was 
alone, well and truly alone, I had no one left.
	That night, as I lay in my bed in Uncle's bungalow, I was approached by Johnson, 
the first mate of the ship along with a cat dressed in a boot-suit, who turned out to be a 
lawyer.
  'Nathaniel,' Johnson began, 'As you no doubt already know, your Uncle left everything to 
you in his will.'
	The will was the last thing I wanted to talk about at that moment, but Johnson 
seemed to be leading the conversation somewhere, and I didn't like the sound of it.
  'But,' said the lawyer, 'He also states that all the business will be handled by Mr. Johnson, 
until you come of age and are ready to take over. Until then he will be your guardian, as per 
your Uncle's last wishes.'
	I thought it ended there, but the worst was yet to come. I had never liked Johnson 
from the start, though not near as much as Lord Bulfour, but as he spoke the next few 
words, he came as close to replacing Bulfour as anyone would ever come.
  'Since I can't take you with me on my next voyage, Nathaniel, as your guardian I'm 
sending you to finishing school, so that you can get good education. When you come of age 
and have enough education, the business will be handed over to you.'
	After they had left, I sat in my bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling, and hating 
everything and everyone I had known in my life. My eyes moistened, but I brushed the tears 
away. No, I would not cry. Crying had not brought back my father or my Uncle, and it 
wouldn't help me get out of this one either. Slowly, a plan formed in my mind.
	That night, as the bungalow slept, I crept out of my room, a backpack over my 
shoulder, packed with the bare minimum things that I needed. Less than two hours later I 
caught a train from the St. Pierre station. I know not how Johnson reacted to my 
disappearance, and I did not care either. I knew where I was going -- to Dascon, where one 
of my Uncle's closest friends lived. I had met him only once before, when my uncle had 
visited his pub. He was tall, chubby, tiger-striped cat with a jolly attitude, and after we had 
left, Uncle had told me; 'Nathaniel, if ever in your life you find yourself in need of help and I 
am not there for you, Fowler will be.'
	I was in need of help now all right, and he was my only hope. I would not go back 
to Johnson, not if my life depended on it.
	Five days after leaving St. Pierre the train arrived at Dascon, which was situated in 
the banks of Terensius, a great, roaring river that branched through many of the surrounding 
villages as well. Its rumbling sound was what welcomed me to Dascon as the train drew up 
to the station. As I stepped out of the train, nothing but a backpack on my shoulder, grief 
behind me and a whole life ahead, I was approached by the Station guard. I suppose I must 
have looked suspicious, a lone young cat barely into his teens, almost looking lost in the 
crowd.
  'Can I see your ticket?' He asked. Sure, I said, and showed it to him. He turned it over in 
his paws as if searching for a forgery, but apparently he saw it was authentic, because he 
handed it back.
  'You got a name?' He asked.
	I was about to say Nathaniel, but I was suddenly reminded of my Uncle and my 
father, both of whom had always called me that. I felt a lump rise in my throat, and I knew 
that it would happen every time I heard that name.
  'Well?' The guard asked.
  'Claw.' I said, 'My name is Claw.'















































PART TWO: THE BARCAT
























							
Chapter 1


	Jonathan Fowler was a widower and had no kittens, and though grieved by the 
news of my Uncle's death, he welcomed me with open arms. At first he did ask me to 
reconsider my decision, but I stood adamant.
	And thus it was that I became Claw the barcat, working my keep in the pub. Mr. 
Fowler, as I called him, would not allow it at first, but I wouldn't have any of it. I had a 
small fortune waiting for me, and I had decided that when I was of age I'd go back to 
snatch it from Johnson. I can see now what a fool I was, and the events that followed 
proved my idiocy.
	Anyway, after a lot of arguing Mr. Fowler gave in, and though at first the prospect 
of running a pub did seem exciting, after a few weeks I was seized with an intense longing 
for the salty smell of the sea. The sea was where I belonged, it was my only true home. That 
was where I should be, and not behind the bar of a pub. But there was nothing I could do 
about it now, I was where I was.
	But one day as I was walking by the roaring river something happened to make my 
stay away from the sea a little more pleasant. It was a Sunday, and the pub closed at noon, 
so I had the afternoon off. I usually spent my spare time walking around the town, but that 
day I decided to take a walk by the river. I often went swimming in it, though I had never 
dared to take on the wider sections because of the current. Even the townsfolk didn't dare 
to cross the river except at the shallowly places, and no one ever entered a boat into it. As I 
walked by I saw a few thick branches floating down the river, and I suppose it was that 
which triggered my mind to take up the challenge which no cat had dared. I vaguely 
remember running back to the pub and finding the axe, then coming back to the bank and 
chopping down a couple of the smaller trees. For the better part of four hours I worked, but 
by the time I was finished I had made a small, strong, raft, easily manoeuvrable because I 
had even put in a small rudder, which could be turned by using the stick that stuck out of the 
water.
	Each and every muscle in my body was aching, as I wasn't used to woodwork, but 
I ignored it and pushed the raft through the ground into the water and hopped into it. 
Instantly it was caught in the current, and I was moving downstream at what seemed like an 
amazing speed, and at that second the pain was gone, the grief of my past was gone, and 
nothing existed outside the waters. The river had huge rocks jutting out of the water here 
and there, and each and every part of my mind was on the water as I guided the raft through 
the roaring current. Apparently it wasn't enough, because I had just gone about a couple of 
hundred yards downhill when I hit a rock and capsized. The raft broke apart and shattered, 
and I went into the water, barely missing a boulder. The current was on to me in an instant, 
but I had learned to swim almost as soon as I had learned to walk, and struck out for the 
shore. The water was ice-cold and I was panting by the time was halfway through, but as I 
reached out and grabbed the solid ground I realized that I was laughing, laughing out of 
sheer joy, something I had not felt since my father's death.
	From that day onwards I went rafting in the river in every free moment I had, and 
when Mr. Fowler found out about my enthusiasm the kind man bought me a canoe. Soon I 
knew the every ripple in the river's water and every pebble on the bank, and could guide 
the canoe through the whole mainstream. When that was no longer a challenge, I went 
seeking out the river's numerous branches, some of which were dangerous rapids. They ran 
all over the town and through the villages around as well, and many a time, following a new 
branch, I would find myself in a place I had never seen. Once I even ended up in an old 
farmer's fields, which he watered with some kind of a wheeling mechanism. One second I 
was in the river, the next, I found myself in the air for a brief instant, and landed in the mud 
with a squelch that must have echoed across the town. I picked myself up, covered in mud 
and scratching my ear, wondering what the hell had just happened, when old man farmer 
came through the fields waving a thong, and chased me all the way over the countryside. I 
didn't dare to go back to get the canoe, and in the end it was Mr. Fowler who retrieved it 
after apologizing to the old cat on my behalf. After this incident he kept a good eye on my 
adventures.
	Months passed. I was in my teens now, and the hours I spent in the canoe made me 
a pretty strong lad. Very soon Mr. Fowler was sending me in his stead for his business trips, 
and I got used to people calling me 'Master Claw' or 'Sir'. I soon learned to assess the 
quality of liquor by the smell, that whisky grew better in taste when it was preserved. I learnt 
how to turn old wine into brandy, and to deal with customers who got too drunk and started 
bashing about. I gained the respect of the regulars who came to the pub, and they stopped 
their 'Ahoy, there, kitten!' call, and moved on to 'Hey, barcat!' This was a definite 
improvement as far as I was concerned, and I worked doubly hard, so that Mr. Fowler 
could sit back and relax every now and then.
	But even though I was happy with that life, I was lonely. Most of the villagers 
thought me mad, because almost all of them had seen me at one time or the other, going 
down the river's deadly rapids, often shouting 'Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!' when I saw 
them. I had a feeling that most mother cats told their sons and daughters to stay away from 
the 'Claw Cat' as I was known to most of the village people. The ones who had vineyards 
were the only ones I interacted with, and that too only for business. It was at this point of 
my life that I met Tabby.


































								
Chapter 2


	Before I go into the details of how Tabby and I met, something must be said about 
Tabby's past. His background was much similar to my own, as I found out later. Tabby's 
father was also a sailor, and he had been very faithful to his captain. The first mate of the 
ship was planning to mutiny against the captain and take over the ship, and Tabby's father 
found out about it and warned him about it. The result was an on-board battle, in which 
most of the Captain's cats were killed, including Tabby's Dad. But the first mate also died 
in the process, and Tabby had escaped by jumping into the sea. He held on to a piece of 
wood for two days, and was rescued by a fisherman. At that point, he had been exactly like 
me, with no one left in the world for him but himself.
	It was five months after this incident that he turned up at Dascon.
	I was in the town, buying up the liquor, and while I was in the store office talking to 
the manager a huge commotion erupted outside. On walking out, we found about four of the 
men standing around a young cat of about my own age, throwing every single abuse that 
they could think of. The young cat, a rather heavily built tabby with a smug look on his face, 
taking it all in without saying a single word, as if silently and ferociously showing that he had 
done no wrong.
  'What's going on?' I asked the manager.
  'Sorry for the row, Master Claw,' one of the men said, 'but this here rascal's gone and 
pinched a whole loaf of bread from the bakery.' (The vineyard also had a diary and a 
baker's store, which I had always thought a bit funny.)
	I looked down at him, and couldn't help feeling sorry. Here I was, same as his age, 
and they were calling me 'Master Claw' and him 'this here rascal'. Would they do the same 
or the opposite if I had been in his place, I wondered? After everything I had gone through, 
life was now fairer to me than it was to this poor teencat.
  'Let him have it.' I said.
  'Master Claw?'
  'I said, let him have it.' My mother had once told me that whenever anger or rage crossed 
my face, my whiskers would bristle up, and the look on my face reminded her of my 
grandfather -- the ferocious street fighter who had disappeared during the War. I have since 
then found out that this look is terrible to behold, and used it only under extreme 
circumstances. I now used it to the full power, looking into his eyes and challenging him to 
say no. Slowly, the fellow backed away.
  'I'll pay for it.' I said when realization dawned on me that perhaps I'd given him too big a 
dose.
  'Yes, Master Claw.' The manager said, signalling the others to back off.
  'And take him inside and give him a decent meal.' I added. 'Treat him as you would treat 
me.' This was probably going too far, but the cat obeyed. He had too much to lose if he got 
on old man Fowler's wrong side.
  'Is the shipment loaded?' I asked the cats who had been loading the liquor on to the 
carriage before the row.
  'Yes, Sir.'
  'Vin, go ahead and take the first carriage to the pub. I'll follow later with the second one.'
  'Yes, Master Claw.' He said and obeyed.
	I went back into the bakery, and was pleased to see that the young cat was by now 
seated in a small chair by the corner, gobbling down whatever food that was laid in front of 
him. He had washed and though it did not have the effect of a good bath or an even better 
licking over, the overall effect was that he looked much more reputable. The instant he saw 
me, he jumped up in saluting, and I realized that my cheeks were burning. From a grown up 
I could take it, but not from someone of my own age.
  'Sit down,' I said, pulling up a chair for myself as I spoke. 'What's your name?'
  'Tabby, Sir. Tabby Bowman Nichols.'
  'Where do you come from?'
	And so he told me his story. He spoke without any emotional outbursts, calmly and 
silently recalling every possible detail. By the time he was finished, I knew that I could never 
leave him back where he had come from.
  'Do you know any work?'
  'Metalwork, Sir, and a little carpentry.' His eyes widened in excitement. 'Can you give me 
a job, Sir? I -- I only stole because I was hungry, Sir.'
	I smiled at him. 'Get in the carriage.' I said. 'And then we'll let Mr. Fowler decide.'
	Of course, all went according to plan, and Tabby joined the staff working at the 
pub. Old man Fowler called me aside and gave me a warning, though -- we had enough 
hands for help as it was, and didn't need any more, so don't bring home any more strays 
like these. He said it as harshly as he could, but I could see that he hadn't expected such 
and action from me, and I had risen by several points in his eyes.
	And thus it was that Tabby became part of my life. I told him to stop calling me 
'Sir' and switch to Claw, like everyone else, but he wouldn't oblige.
  'You saved me from the streets, Sir.' He would say. 'And you'll always be my Master.'
  'Well, don't call me Sir, then.' I said, 'Call me something else -- try…Captain.' It was my 
dream; to become a ship's Captain, and I was letting it take as tiny a mould in real life as I 
dared.
	From that day onwards Tabby was right by my side wherever I went. I soon got 
used to it, and though I had never liked others' company too much, I found that Tabby was 
an exception. He was a rather clumsy, pleasant-faced cat, always wearing that curious 
expression on his face. He was eternally faithful, and less than a week after I had met him I 
made a vow to myself that if ever I became a real Captain in my life, Tabby would be my 
First mate, and then he could become Mr. Tabby, and he would make a fearless second-in-
command.
	In spite of his meek looks, he turned out to be a surprisingly good sailor. I gave him 
a test -- made him a raft that was similar to the one on which I had completed my first 
successful trip of the river, and told him to launch it into the waters -- by himself. This he did 
without hesitation, and when the raft wrecked, (it always did on everyone's first try) he 
went under the water, and before I could jump in to get him, he had surfaced just beyond 
the shore, grinning broadly, though out of breath.
	Later, when the chartering service came along, I gave the same test to every cat in 
my crew, and didn't let them even step on the boat till they had passed. If they wrecked the 
raft, they had to build the next one on their own. Peter Phil actually had to build forty-seven 
rafts before he finally made through. But it had its results; every member of the team had the 
courage and daring, along with the skill, to brave any waters on earth by the time they were 
finished. Because of its difficulty, it came to be known among the younger cats as the 
'Claw-Tabby iron test', Claw because I put them to it, and Tabby because he was the one 
in charge of the judging.
	But I wander from the course of the tale. After just about six trials Tabby passed 
with flying colours, and with the help of his carpentry skills, the two of us made a couple 
more canoes; one the same as that I had, the other bigger and better, which could seat the 
both of us. Soon we were exploring areas of the river no one had even dared to go into, 
where sometimes the water was so shallow we had to lift up the boats and put them on our 
shoulders to pass, and in other areas where it was so deep we couldn't see them bottom 
even when we dived below the surface.

	That summer we were taught a new variety of adventure: Hunting. It was old man 
Fowler himself who taught the two of us how to handle a gun, and being eager pupils we 
learned fast. Old man Fowler taught the first chapter well; he grabbed both of us by our 
ears, and shook us till our teeth rattled. Then he spoke. 'Lesson number one,' He said as I 
steadied the world which was spinning around me, 'Never point a gun at someone or 
something you don't want to kill. Because next thing you know the two of you could end up 
shooting each other by accident.'
	Tabby and I exchanged glances, and I could tell that he was imagining how it would 
be like to find out he had killed me, just as I was imagining how it would feel to have shot 
my future first mate. Horror filled both our faces, and old man Fowler smiled. 'Better to 
learn it now than the hard way.' He said. 'Now you know what it can feel like, I can trust 
you to move on to Lesson number two.'
	Lesson number two turned out to be focusing your concentration on the target, and 
not on the weapon in your hand. This one was slightly harder, and he made the two of us 
take aim at wooden targets with an empty rifle. I realized that he had a point, when 
something of that power was in your hand; you were likely to be looking at that thing instead 
of what you were supposed to be shooting at. But that one too, we learned fast, and moved 
on to Lesson three. This contained some real shooting from our parts, and some real 
shouting from Mr. Fowler's part.
  'I said focus on the target, not the barrel of the damn rifle!' He would yell when one of us 
took a particularly bad miss.
	But the yelling and the cussing took effect, and in a few days both of us became 
pretty good shots, and even moved on to handguns. These were slightly harder to handle 
than the rifle, and though I picked up easily, Tabby did not, and still preferred the rifle, even 
though he was not a bad shot with a pistol.
	Once old man Fowler was convinced that we could handle ourselves on our own, 
he let us go hunting by ourselves.
	'Go anywhere around the river.' He said. 'You can even go anywhere in the 
prairies, but stay away from the forest.'
	I did not dare to ask him why, and he did not bother to tell us. At first we obliged 
and never hunted too far away from the river, but soon we were seeking out new territories. 
In that the prairies themselves were spread over a vast area waiting to be explored, and we 
contended ourselves with that at the beginning. On Sundays we would pull out of the pub 
early in the day with old man Fowler's permission, and spent the morning walking over the 
prairie lands hunting. When noon came we would return to the river's bank, and find a nice 
cosy spot to cook and eat the game we had shot down. In this way we enjoyed many a 
rabbit stew, sometimes with fresh fish caught from the river roasted over a tripod to go with 
it. After the meal (and by our hunting standards it was always huge) we would take a nap in 
a cool shade, which stretched as much as four hours sometimes. In the afternoon we'd go 
canoeing some more, and return at night, by which time the pub would be closed and old 
man Fowler would give us a special supper, mostly pancakes, while we told him of our 
adventures and he cooked the leftover game which we brought for himself. These were 
some of the happiest days of my life.
	But the day came when we disobeyed him completely, and went into the forest 
beyond the prairies. The game was better there, there were deer to be found, though rare. 
When that day we went in and came back and nothing happened, our boldness grew. We 
were soon venturing deeper and deeper into the jungle. Twice we managed to shoot down 
deer, and on those days we had venison for lunch. Tabby, as befitting his figure, was an 
excellent cook, which suited me fine because I couldn't even brew tea; not even with a gun 
to my head.
	On one such day we had spotted a herd of about six deer, and were stalking them 
through the edge of the forest when we found out why old man Fowler had forbidden the 
forest. It was ironical, because all the time we had disobeyed him nothing happened, and 
when something did, we were at the borders dividing the prairie lands and the forest, and 
not really disobeying him.
	Hunting deer is nasty and extremely hard business, because there will always be a 
few of them keeping watch, and their jumping gallop took them higher than the tall grass of 
the prairie, which meant they could spot an adversary hiding in the grass, depending on your 
-- or their -- luck. Tabby and I were watching them from the forest's edge, holding our rifles 
at the ready.
	'Let's go, Captain.' Tabby said, and lying down on our bellies, we started crawling 
forward. We were still halfway between the woods and the prairie when suddenly a feeling 
of acute danger came over me, making the fur on the back of my neck arch up. Slowly, I 
crawled around, and realized that Tabby was nowhere to be seen.
  'Tabby?' I hissed. 'Tabby?'
	There was some sudden movement in the trees ahead, and the herd stampeded in 
panic, speedily disappearing into the distance in their rhythmic, slow, gallops. I swung 
around and aimed my rifle at the place where I thought the movement had been, but no one 
was there. Instead a voice spoke from somewhere else.
  'Drop yer gun, laddie.'
	I turned, but could not tell where the sound had come from.
  'Drop it or yer pal here gets it.' And, about a dozen feet, away, two big cats appeared, 
holding Tabby down as he struggled. From around them several cross-bows were pointed 
at Tabby's heart, while some others at mine.
	I stood up, and tossed the gun down into the grass.
  'Good lad.' The voice said. 'Now back off and don't try anythin' stupid.'
	Again, I obliged, and from the trees a band of men emerged, clad in green and 
armed to the teeth. Something seemed to stick in my stomach, and I remembered Mr. 
Fowler telling me a long time back; 'that forest's as full of bandits and thieves as it can get.' 
He'd probably thought I remembered it, that's why he didn't warn us again. After all, Old 
man Fowler never said anything twice, and he'd been sure we wouldn't disobey. Would 
that become the silly cause of my death?
	The men let Tabby go and gave him a violent push, sending him staggering forward. 
He stumbled before regaining his balance and I helped him up. 'Sorry, Cap'n.' he mumbled. 
'They was on me before I even knew it.' I nodded.
  'What d'you reckon we should do with 'em?' One of the cats asked.
  'Well, you know the rule, nobody goes back after trespassing into our territory.'
	My heart skipped a beat, but before I could even think of going for one of them, 
another said, 'No, they're just a couple o' teencats on a hunt. Frisk them, you.' The last 
statement was directed at a thin cat with a longbow, who set it down and checked us over. 
Tabby's shiny new leather belt was removed, as was my golden watch.
  'Nothing more.' He declared.
  'Do we let them go?' Someone asked.
  'Aw, we will. Listen, you two -- it was you who shot that deer last Sunday, wasn't it?'
	I nodded.
  'Well, now, we don't like people catching our food, but we'll let you go this time. Turn 
around, start walking, and don't look back. You look back, and I can't be responsible for 
the results. Understand?'
	Again, we nodded.
  'Good. And don't ever hunt deer here, you hear me?' Now get going!' He raised his rifle 
and fired, and dust kicked up inches from Tabby's foot, making him jump. The two of us 
retreated, and turning, broke out into a run as fast as our paws could carry us.





















	That's all I've written…e-mail me about what you think. Is the 
difference in style too obvious? I've done my best to write similar to 
John Doe. And thanks for all the names.
	I'll have three more Parts for the story. Part three will be 
The Charterer, Part Four: The Captain, and Part Five: The Pirate, 
which I hope will illustrate Claw's gradual change from the kitten to 
the ferocious cat as we know him.
P.S: Part Two: The Barcat isn't yet finished. It will go on to show 
how Claw meets Katherine, and then we move on to Part Three, in 
which Claw gets the rest of the crew together and becomes a 
Transporter for the traders, and which will also show the battle that 
takes place with the Forest's bandits.
	Part Four will show how Nathaniel arrives back in St. Pierre to 
find that the first mate had taken the ship, claiming Claw to be 
dead. It goes on to show how Claw and his friends get their own ship, 
and set sail to the islands, where they find Lord Bulfour paw-in glove 
with Johnson. It will also describe the beginning of the strange 
events in the Barrow Lands.
	Part Five will bring a final showdown. I liked your idea of a 
supernatural encounter and I've planned a mega-blaster suspense for 
the end. Won't tell you what is now, it'll ruin things. Let me know 
what you think about it so far.

P.S: Don't put the new chapters on your site…we'll surprise the 
others with an opening when the whole thing's finished.
P.P.S: I expect it to be at least fifty pages. Too long?