The Voice of the Pack

e underbrush, and again he punctiliously, but with wretched spirit, left the trail. A fight with Woof the bear was one of the most unpleasant experiences that could be imagined. He

, and the cougar cared too much for his own li

on a dry twig, just at the crucial moment. Perhaps it was the fault of Woof, whose presence had driven Whisperfoot from the trail, and perhaps because

l any better. This animal had a number of curious stripes along his back, and usually did nothing more desperate than steal eggs and eat bird fledglings. Whisperfoot could have crushed him with one bite, but this was one thing that the great cat, as

the salt lick; and Whisperfoot's heart bounded when he detected him. No human hunter could have laid his plans with greater care. He had to cut up the side of the ridge, mindful of the wind. Then th

ble spread of antlers, limbs that were wings, and a body that was grace itself. He was a timid creature, b

he buckbrush. Thirty feet more-thirty feet of particularly difficult stalking-and he would

ersmen have learned to watch for. He placed every paw with consummate grace, and few sets of human nerves have suff

to the last thicket, from which he might sp

sounded as one. Neither Blacktail nor Whisperfoot had any delusions about them. They recognized them at once, in strange ways under the skin that no man may describe, as the far-off reports of

oo far. His outstretched paw hummed down four feet behind Blacktail's flank. Then forgettin

will sometimes throw a herd of game into a panic and cause them to run into an ambush. All Whisperfoot's howl of anger achieved was to frighten all the deer out of his territory and render it extre

f grouse exploded with a roar of wings from a thicket; but they had been wakened by the first

l pupils may only respond to light. No owl or bat can see in absolute darkness. Although the stars still burned, and possibly a fine filament of light had spread out from the East, the d

rd a doe feeding on a hillside. Its footfall was not so heavy as the sturdy tramp of a buck, and besid

ther, in an open glade. For a long moment the tawny creature stood motionless, hoping that the prey would wander toward him. But even in this darkness, he could tell th

r herd to which the doe must have belonged would come into his ambush. But the hunt was late, and Whisperfoot was very, very angry. Too many times this night he had missed his kill. Besides, the herd was certainly somewhere down wind, and for

beheld the dim, tawny figure in the air and that in which her long legs pushed out in a spring. But she didn't leap straight ahead. She knew enough of the cougars to know that the great cat would certainly aim for her head and neck in the s

knows nothing about the ways of animals. They cling to it to the death. And nothing is quite so amusing to old Woof, the bear-who, after all, has the best sense of humor in the forest-as the sight of a tawny, majestic mountain lion, rabid and foaming at the mouth, in an ef

hose mysterious waters that the events of life can hardly trouble-he really didn't expect to overtake her. If he had stopped to think, it would have been one o

d any perceptions of the creature other than its movements. He was running down wind, so it is certain that he didn't smell it. If he saw it at all, it was just as a sha

long life of his race he had known that pungent essence that flowed forth. His senses perceived it, a message shot

d. He only knew the worst single terror of his life. It was not a doe that he had attacked in the darkness. It was not Urson, the porcupine, or even Woof. It was that imperial master of al

as a strange, wild smell in the air. Whisperfoot's stroke had gone home so true there had not even been a fight. The darkness began to lift around him, and a s