resumed his journey with a definiteness of purpose which kept him from
squandering time on the chase. Only once he halted, and that was when
the cries and flutterings of a pair of excited thrushes caught his
attention. He saw their nest in a low tree--and he saw a black snake,
coiled in the branches, greedily swallowing the half-fledged
nestlings. This was an opportunity which he could not afford to lose.
He ran expertly up the tree, pounced upon the snake, and bit through
its back bone just behind the head. The strong, black coils
straightened out limply. Carrying his prize between his jaws, the
catamount descended to the ground, growling and jerking savagely when
the wriggling length got tangled among the branches. Quick to
understand the services of their most unexpected ally, the desperate
birds returned to one surviving nestling, and their clamours ceased.
Beneath the tree the exile hurriedly devoured a few mouthfuls of the
thick meat of the back just behind the snake's head, then resumed his
journey toward Ringwaak.

It was close upon sunset when he reached the first fringes of the
northward slope of the mountain. Here his reception was benign. On the
banks of a tiny brook, rosy-gold in the flooding afternoon light, he
found a bed of wild catnip. Here for a few minutes he rolled in
ecstasy, chewing and clawing at the aromatic leaves, all four paws in
air, and hoarsely purring his delight. When, at last, he went on up
the slope, he carried with him through the gathering shadows the
pungent, sweet aroma of the herb. In a fierce gaiety of spirit he
would now and then leap into the air to strike idly at some bird
flitting high above his reach. Or he would jump and clutch
kittenishly with both paws at a fluttering, overhanging leaf, or
pounce upon an imaginary quiet mouse crouched among the leaves.

About twilight, as he was nearing the summit of the hill, he came
across a footprint which somewhat startled him out of his
intoxication. It was a footprint not unlike his own, but distinctly
larger. Being an old sign, there was no scent left to it--but its size
was puzzling and disquieting. From this on he went warily, not knowing
when he might be called upon to measure forces with some redoubtable
possessor of the range. When the moon rose, round and white and
all-revealing, and threw sinister shadows from rampike and rock, he
kept to the densest thickets and felt oppressed with strangeness. But
when he succeeded in s