While Captain Smith, Ms. Burnett, Mr. Walters, and Mr. Cook all helped Mrs. Neuwirth and Mr. Andrew Barnett prepare for tea, Alexander accompanied Alan, Ian, and Hippolyta on a walk. The students had had their morning lessons and so Ian was accompanying his cousins on their walk, bringing Cnut with him.
As the offspring of a Vancouver Island wolf and an Alaskan malamute, Cnut was thirty inches tall at the shoulder, five feet long and weighed ninety-two pounds. He was slender with grey and white fur, amber eyes, and the ever-present black nose that canines typically had. He was five years old and had been with Captain Smith since he was a pup. Cnut always slept in the boys' room to make sure they were safe at night, his mate Emma the rough collie doing the same with the girls.
The meeting between Alexander and Cnut had been uneventful. Alexander had recognized Cnut as the dominant quadruped just as Cnut had recognized the late Darius. When Darius had died, Cnut had been howling mournfully many a night, saddened by the loss of his friend.
As caracal and wolfdog walked a few feet ahead of the three cousins on the bank of the river that ran through the estate, Ian said: "I don't understand why dad ever wanted to leave this place for Britain. Quebec Castle is so grand!"
"All I know is that your dad and Grandpa had a fight over some such thing." Commented Alan.
"What was Grandpa like?" asked Hippolyta.
"He was funny, very kind, tended to get angry whenever John A. Macdonald was brought up." Replied Alan, stopping for a moment to tie a shoelace that had gotten loose. "Considering he was a pacifist that had been pressganged to fight against the Fenian Raids I can't say I blame him. 'Alan', he said to me, 'a lot of good Scots and Irishmen helped build this country, but John A. Macdonald was not one of them.'"
As Alan stood up, Alexander paused and looked across the river. On the other side was walking a feline, medium-sized much like himself, but two inches taller at the shoulders and shorter by an inch in head-and-body length. It had long, dense fur, triangular ears with black tufts at the tips not unlike a caracal's, and broad, snowshoe-like paws. The hindlimbs were longer than the forelimbs and so, the back sloped downward toward the front. The fur of the cat was a yellowish-brown, much different than Alexander's reddish tan.
"There is Miltiades!" exclaimed Hippolyta, pointing across the river. "Look! Right there! See him! Oh, the brute! I wish daddy would shoot him for what he did to Darius!"
Miltiades stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the group on the other side of the river. His eyes locked with Alexander's and immediately, both felines flattened their ears against their skulls and narrowed their eyes. While Cnut growled at the killer of his friend, Miltiades did not take his eyes from Alexander.
The river was fifteen feet wide and as a caracal Alexander could jump as high as ten. There was no reason to believe he ever would have been able to make the jump. As a Canada lynx, Miltiades could swim across, yet even then he had no desire to. So it was, that all the two grimalkins did was stare at one another.
"I'm sure Miltiades will face something more powerful than himself one of these days." Commented Alan. "Come on, now, let us continue on our walk. Alexander, Cnut, come! Come along, cousins, no need to stare at Miltiades!" While the others walked on, Alexander remained and stared at Miltiades, until finally the lynx continued along his way.