: The old forester tames the trot. Soon the lynx escapes and returns home, but the watchman dies, and the lynx leaves in the northern forests.

Chapters One - Three

Forest watchman Andreich went around his plot. He took the gun with him, but did not intend to hunt - at this time of the year roe hunting was forbidden, and the females could not be killed at all. Watching the roe deer, Andreich saw a huge old lynx attack the female and break her spine. Without hesitation, the guard raised his gun and fired - a luxurious lynx skin was expensive.

Andreich got into a predator, but did not kill her. When the guard came up, a lynx attacked him and stuck his teeth into the hand with which he covered his throat. Andreich barely managed to grab a hunting knife and put it in the side of the beast. Having caught his breath, he removed the skin from the prey, at the same time grabbing the meat of roe deer killed by a trot. The fishery, intended for a lynx, badly ruined the skin of a roe deer, but Andreich grabbed it too - not to lose good.

Already about to leave, Andreich heard the “quiet dreary meow” of the lynxes left without a mother, whose eyes had recently opened. The watchman found and killed two lynxes, but then another lynx crawled up to him, which his mother did not manage to transfer to a new den. Andreich could not kill this baby, for the slanting Tatar eyes he called him Murzuk Batyevich and carried him to his home.

The old bachelor Andreich lived in a small hut surrounded by a forest in the middle of his plot. The watchman’s modest economy “consisted of a cow, a horse, a dozen chickens and a decrepit racing dog” named Kunak. The first week Andreich fed Murzuk from a home-made nipple, but soon the trotter himself was already lapping milk from a saucer.

Andreich quickly became attached to a playful animal like a kitten. Kunak kept an eye on Murzuk, until one day the lynx settled down to sleep right on the chest of the old dog. Kunak was subdued and set about raising a trotter. Soon Murzuk adopted the habits of the dog, fell in love with the owner and learned to obey him at once.

All animals, which only he did not have to keep, became his voluntary servants and true friends.

With the money raised for the skin of an old lynx, Andreich bought a goat with a goat and taught Murzuk to drive stubborn animals into a stable. Kunak died in the fall, and Murzuk took his place - he drove Andreich to hunt on the hunt and guarded the house. There was a rumor about a trot at the neighboring villages, and the peasants came to look at Murzuk. Many offered Andreich a lot of money for him, but the old man was very fond of the lynx and refused everything.

Chapters Four - Eighth

Three years have passed. One summer evening, a man with a large iron cage, dressed in a city coat and bowler, drove up to Andreich’s house. It was Mr. Jacobs, director of the Zoological Garden. He wanted to buy a lynx from Andreich for a lot of money. The watchman refused to sell his friend, but the persistent Mr. Jacobs stayed overnight with the old man.

Trying to make amends for his refusal, Andreich cordially received the guest. During tea, he tried to explain to Mr. Jacobs that Murzuk, his first assistant, Andreich, was tormented by rheumatism, and without a lynx he would never have managed the household. But Mr. Jacobs didn't care - he needed a lynx.

Andreich made an uninvited guest a bed on his bed, and under his head put the skin of a female roe deer, which Murzuk's mother had once killed. Mr. Jacobs did not sleep. He lived all his life in Russia, working as the director of the menagerie at an amusement park, which was loudly called the Zoological Garden. Mr. Jacobs did not lose his purely English obstinacy. He tempered his will by making difficult bets and winning them by any means.

Mr. Jacobs argued with the owner of the park that he would buy a lynx.Now he felt that he was losing the bet, and he could not sleep. In the hut it was stuffy, Mr. Jacobs came out, grabbing a sheepskin coat and a skin of roe deer. In the light of dawn, the Englishman saw that the skin was removed from the hornless female. In the morning, he demanded that Andreich sell the lynx, threatening to tell the forest authorities that the watchman was breaking the law and hunting for queens.

Andreich’s superiors changed, and no one would have believed his story about how an old lynx killed a roe deer. The old man was threatened with a large fine and dismissal, but he had nowhere to go. I had to agree. With his own hands, Andreich locked Murzuk in a cage, but did not take the money.

Trusting the owner infinitely, Murzuk became worried, only finding himself in a train car. He tried to open the cage and found that it was locked - he ended up in prison. In the menagerie, Murzuk was relocated to a more spacious cage, and he immediately began to try on the strength of the walls of his new prison, and the owner and Mr. Jacobs calmly admired the magnificent animal, not paying attention to his longing screams.

These people have long been accustomed to the endlessly dreary cry of wild animals, doomed to slow death in captivity.

The lynxes gave a piece of horsemeat, but it turned out to be stale, and the beast, accustomed to hunting, did not eat it. At night, he had a fight over meat with a jaguar living in a neighboring cage, and from that moment he hated cats. Rats ran to the smell of rotten horseflesh, Murzuk went hunting and ate. Then he discovered that one of the rods of the cage succumbed, and until the morning he shook it, clutching his teeth.

In the afternoon, Mr. Jacobs noticed the meat in a lynx cage and ordered that the beast not be given new food until the old one was eaten. The audience stared at Murzuk all day. Previously, he did not feel hostility towards people, but now he began to hate them.

The days passed. Every night Murzuk painstakingly loosened the rod of the cage. Cautious rats no longer showed up, and the lynx had to eat rotten meat, but it was also missing. Murzuk began to lose weight and weaken from hunger. Finally, the rod was completely shaken, and the beast felt that it would soon be free.

Two months later, a huge female gorilla was brought to the menagerie. Once in the cage, the gorilla began to howl, and the rest of the animals screamed after her. The frightened audience rushed to the exit, and Murzuk began struggling to throw himself at the grate. Armed with a rifle, Mr. Jacobs noticed that the rod in the lynx's cage was about to fall out, and headed for it.

At that moment, a polar bear burst out of the cage opposite and rushed at the Englishman with a roar. Murzuk meanwhile knocked out the rod, but did not have time to escape - Mr. Jacobs quickly killed the bear, and the menagerie guard sent a strong stream of water from the hose to the lynx and covered the gap with a portable cage. Murzuk was again captured.

Chapters Nine - Eleventh

Andreich had a hard life without Murzuk, he became completely decrepit and had difficulty moving. Anticipating the imminent death, he decided to go to the city and last time to see a trot.

Andreich, not accustomed to the bustling city streets, found the zoological garden with difficulty. It was hard for him to look at the dull, indifferent, sick animals "with dead eyes and languid movements," because he was used to seeing them in the forest, alive and fast.

Animals and birds didn’t live here — they vegetated locked up when they were full of strength and health — and they suffered for a long time, decrepit, waiting for a belated death.

Murzuk immediately recognized his beloved master. The audience watched with enthusiasm as the old man strokes a wild lynx, and she growls like a domestic cat. Then Mr. Jacobs appeared and drove out Andreich. The audience surrounded the old man, asking him about Murzuk.

Having forced himself out of the crowd, Andreich found himself in a "narrow fetid passage between the backs of the cells." He understood that Mr. Jacobs would never let him buy Murzuk, but he could not leave him here to die. Suddenly, the old man heard the meow of a lynx and realized that he was behind her cage. He opened the bolt on the iron door and quickly left the menagerie.

Mr. Jacobs, who lived next to the menagerie, trained every morning, shooting pigeons from the attic. In the morning after the visit of Andreich, the Englishman also climbed into the attic. There Murzuk convinced him. Mr. Jacobs tried to kill the lynx, but the bullet only cut off the tip of the fluffy tail.

Murdering the enemy, Murzuk headed along the rooftops to the city center. Only in the morning the zoo watchman noticed the loss and raised the alarm. He did not know that at night Murzuk leaned against the cell door, and it suddenly opened. The beast got out of the menagerie, entered the first house that came across, where he came across an Englishman.

News spread throughout the city that a wild lynx had escaped from the Zoological Garden. Soon Murzuk was noticed in a city square and quickly cordoned him off.

Chapters twelve to seventeen

Late in the evening of the same day, sitting on the embankment, one tramp was telling another how a lynx was caught in the city square. He was there and saw Murzuk on a tree, but he didn’t betray him to the city man, fearing that he would be taken to the station. So the lynx left the chase and a reward was announced for it. They also guessed that the old man who had come to the menagerie released a lynx.

Suddenly the tramps heard a dog barking, then a huge lynx rushed past them and rushed into the river. The tramps rushed to the boat, dreaming of catching Murzuk and getting a reward. In the middle of the river, they overtook a lynx and tried to stun her with an oar. Murzuk dodged and jumped into the boat. The tramps jumped overboard at the same moment, and the boat trotted down the stream.

By morning, Murzuk was outside the city, got ashore and went deep into the forest. “There was a compass in his chest that directed his running” to where Andreich’s hut stood a hundred kilometers from this place.

Murzuk did not stop for three days, hunting small rodents on the run. From hunger, he was completely weakened, and he had to become for a great hunt. Murzuk was lucky to kill a young moose.

Some time later, the village headman received the order "to immediately arrest and send to the city a forest guard Andreich." But the headman had another problem: in the village a terrible white and bearded werewolf with a cat face appeared, attacking livestock.

The werewolf was Murzuk. When he reached the village, he decided to eat a sheep and managed to eat half when he saw a man and hid in a barn. There he landed in a bag of flour, then he saw through the ajar door a hated domestic cat, jumped out, tore it up and disappeared into the forest.

Murzuk set out to hunt down with dogs.

A good dog can easily catch a lynx.

Murzuk confused the track, hid it in the water of a fast stream, but a smart, old hound solved all his tricks. Finally, the lynx weakened and fell into the snow. Dogs jumped to the beast, he tore four, including the old hound, and hid in the forest.

Andreich, meanwhile, was completely weakened. A month ago, his cow died, and he ate only goat milk. Today the goats fled to the forest, but the old man did not have the strength to drive them home. Andreich was sitting on the porch when goats swept past him and hid in the stable. Murzuk appeared next and rushed to the owner’s chest.

That day the bouts arrived to arrest the old man. He was already leaving the gate, surrounded by horse guards, when Murzuk appeared and scared away the horses. The horses got scared and carried. It was impossible to go back on horseback, and the breeders went to ask the headman for reinforcements.

Murzuk returned to Andreich with a big black grouse in his mouth and found his beloved master dead - the old man’s weak heart could not stand the excitement. The busters who returned the next day found the dead Andreich on the porch, and Murzuk disappeared.

Soon, newspapers began to write about a large and impudent lynx, which attacks livestock and destroys cats. It was impossible to track down the beast, but they recognized it by its chopped tail. The last time Murzuk was spotted on the "northern edge of our country." There Murzuk found a safe haven.