was the mystery of it all--that
there appeared to be no movement besides. If this sound came from the
tigress, at least, she had not stirred to meet him.

The hiss sunk to a low guttural grating. No cub had a cavernous
profundity of sound such as that. Still there was not the stir of a
muscle, so far as his senses had detected.

Skag was puzzled. Big game before him, possibly nerved to spring, and
yet the tensity was not like that. The man stood still, waiting for
his eyes to adjust to the darkness--waiting for the mystery to clear.
Then to the right, like a little constellation suddenly pricking
through the twilight, Skag saw a cluster of young stars. His heart
warmed--kittens hunched there in a bundle and watching him. Their
pricked ears presently shadowed somewhat from the blacker background;
then he saw the little party suddenly swept and overturned, as if a
long thin arm had brushed them back out of reach of the intruder.

Now his eyes turned slightly to the left and began to get the rest--the
great levelled creature upon the darkened floor. Skag kept his
imagination down until his optic nerves actually brought him the
picture. The long thin sweep was the mother's tail, yet she was not
crouched. Skag saw her sprawled paws extended toward him. She lay
upon her side.

Thus it was that he was rounded back to the original proposition. He
had found the lair of the wounded tigress and her young. For fully two
minutes Skag stood quiet before her, working softly--her hiss changing
at slow intervals to the cavernous growl. The kittens were too young
to organise attack--the tigress was too maimed for resistance, even
though at bay in lair with her kittens to defend.

Now the man saw the gleam of her eyes. She had followed his movements
and was holding him now, but half vacantly. The pity of it all touched
him; the rest of the story cleared. Her tongue was like a blown bag,
the blackness of it apparent even in the dark. She was dying of
thirst, the bullet wound in the shoulder turned up to him. The little
ones were still active, for the tigress had fed them until her whole
body was drained. He saw how her breast had been torn by the thirsty
little ones--the open sores against the soft grey of her nether parts.
Skag backed out. Nels pressed him--half lifted his great body in
silent welcome.

"Oh, yes," Skag was saying, "we got the call, all right, my son. Four
little duds in there eating their moth