urprising a hen partridge hovering over her
brood, with the blood warm in his mouth he began to feel at home. This
fine range should be his, whoever might contest the sovereignty.
Coming across a deer trail leading beneath an overhanging rock, he
climbed the rock and crouched in ambush, waiting to see what might
come by.

For an hour he crouched there, motionless as the eternal granite
itself, while the moon climbed and whitened, and the shadows of the
rampikes changed, and the breathless enchantment deepened over
Ringwaak. At long intervals there would be a faint rustling in some
near-by clump of juniper, or a squeak and a brief scuffle in the
thickets; or, on wings as soundless as sleep, a great owl would pass
by, to drop sharply behind a rock, or sail away like a ghost among the
rampikes. But to none of these furtive happenings did the watcher on
the rock pay any heed. He was waiting for what might come upon the
trail.

At last, it came. Stepping daintily on her small, fine hoofs, her
large eyes glancing timorously in every direction, a little yearling
doe emerged from the bushes and started to cross the patch of
brilliant light. The strange, upright pupils of the catamount's eyes
narrowed and dilated at the sight, and his muscles quivered to sudden
tension. The young doe came beneath the rock. The cat sprang,
unerring, irresistible; and the next moment she lay kicking helplessly
beneath him, his fangs buried in her velvet throat.

[Illustration: "SOMETHING MADE HIM TURN HIS HEAD QUICKLY."]

This was noble prey; and the giant cat, his misgivings all forgotten,
drank till his long thirst was satiated. His jaws dripping, he lifted
his round, fierce face, and gazed out and away across the moonlit
slopes below him toward his ancient range beyond the Guimic. While he
gazed, triumphing, something made him turn his head quickly and eye
the spruce thicket behind him.

III.

It was at this moment that the old lynx, master of Ringwaak, coming
suddenly out into the moonlight, saw the grim apparition beneath the
rock, and flattened to the ground.

Through long, momentous, pregnant seconds the two formidable and
matched antagonists scrutinized each other, the lynx close crouched,
ready to launch himself like a thunderbolt, the catamount half risen,
his back bowed, one paw of obstinate possession clutching the head of
his prey. In the eyes of each, as they measured each other's powers
and sought for an advantage, flame