ot free,--but free not for fight but for flight. One tremendous,
wildly contorted leap landed him on the other side of the dead tree;
and, thoroughly cowed, he scurried away down the hillside.

The ram at once turned his attention to the ewe and her antagonist.
But the second lynx, who had not found his task so simple as he had
expected it to be, had no stomach left for one more difficult. The ewe
was bleeding about the head, and would, of course, if she had been
left to fight it out, have been worsted in a very short time. But the
enemy had felt the weight of her blows upon his ribs, and had learned
his lesson. For just a fraction of a second he turned, and defied the
ram with a screeching snarl. But when that horned, black, battering
head pitched forward at him he bounded aside like a furry gray ball
and clambered to the top of the rock. Here he crouched for some
moments, snarling viciously, his tufted ears set back against his
neck, and his stump of a tail twitching with rage, while the ram
minced to and fro beneath him, stamping defiance with his dainty
hoofs. All at once the big cat doubled upon itself, slipped down the
other side of the rock, and went gliding away through the stumps and
hillocks like a gray shadow; and the ram, perhaps to conceal his
elation, fell to grazing as if nothing out of the ordinary had
happened. The ewe, on the other hand, seeing the danger so well past,
took no thought of her torn face, but set herself to comfort and
reassure the trembling lamb.

After this, through the slow, bright hours while the sun swung hotly
over Ringwaak, the ram and his little family were undisturbed. An
eagle, wheeling, wheeling, wheeling in the depths of the blue, looked
down and noted the lamb. But he had no thought of attacking so well
guarded a prey. The eagle had a wider outlook than others of the wild
kindred, and he knew from of old many matters which the lynxes of
Ringwaak had never learned till that day.

There were other visitors that came and glanced at the little family
during the quiet content of their cud-chewing. A weasel ran restlessly
over a hillock and peered down upon them with hard, bright eyes. The
big ram, with his black face and huge, curling horns, was a novel
phenomenon, and the weasel disappeared behind the hillock, only to
appear again much nearer, around a clump of weeds. His curiosity was
mingled with malicious contempt, till the ram chanced to rise and
shake his head. Then the w