hine. But
she was a brave Indian maiden who knew no such thing as fear, and so,
throwing her heavy load over her shoulder, and supporting it with the
carrying strap from her forehead, she cheerily moved along, thinking how
happy she would be if she captured that fox to-morrow, when suddenly the
shriek of a wild beast rang in her ears, and she was hurled down on her
face to the ground.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE RESCUE.

We left Oowikapun hurrying along on willing feet at the place in the
forest where he had first observed the snowshoe tracks of the hunter of
the village he was approaching. Observing that the tracks were those of
a woman, he could not help hoping that they were those of the fair
maiden whom he had met near that same spot two winters before. This
hope filled him with pleasant anticipation, and so on and on he hurried.

As he strode along swiftly but quietly, an object caught his attention
that filled him with excitement and called for all his hunter's
experience and trained instincts. Crouching down, and yet hurrying
along rapidly, in front of him, not three hundred yards away, was an
enormous catamount. This was not a mere lynx or wild cat, but one of
those great fierce brutes, more allied to the mountain lion of the
Rockies, or the panthers, now about extinct, in the western and northern
part of this continent.

As Oowikapun watched the graceful, dangerous brute gliding along before
him, the thought came into his mind that perhaps this was the very one
whose wild, weird shrieks had sounded in his ears so dolefully, as he
shivered in the little wigwam of the village he was now approaching.

Knowing the habits of these animals, he supposed this one, from its
rapid, persistent, forward movements, and the absence of that alert
watchfulness which they generally possess, was on the track of a deer.

Oowikapun dropped to the ground and carefully looked for the tracks of
the game that this fierce catamount was pursuing, but to his surprise he
could not discover the footprints of any animal. All at once the truth
flashed upon him, that this fierce brute had got on the trail of the
woman, and, maddened it may be by hunger, was resolved to attack her.
As he hastened on he became more thoroughly convinced of this, as he
observed how like a great sleuth-hound it glided along in the snowshoe
tracks before them. Quickly did Oowikapun prepare for action. His
trusty gun was loaded with ball. His knife an