ere in plain, alluring view, he
scanned piercingly the shadows and drooping branches which encircled the
glade. Suddenly he seemed to detect something to his distaste. A red
gleam of anger and ferocity flared into his eyes, and he sank back
noiselessly into covert.

A moment later came a huge lynx, padding softly but fearlessly straight
out into the revealing light, as if he knew that at this season, when
the bears were asleep and the bull moose, bereft of their antlers, had
lost their interest in combat, there was none of all the forest kindreds
to challenge his supremacy. He was stealthy, of course, in every
movement, and his round, sinister eyes glared palely into every covert,
but that was merely because he dreaded to frighten off a possible
quarry, not because he feared a lurking foe. The frozen fish, however,
showed no signs of flight at his approach; so he fell upon the nearest
fragment and bolted it ravenously.

Having thus eagerly disposed of several substantial lumps, the great
lynx became more critical, and went sniffing fastidiously from morsel to
morsel as if he revelled in such unexpected abundance. Suddenly there
was a vicious _click_; and with a spit and a yowl the lynx started as if
to jump into the air. Instead of rising, however, some six or seven
feet, under the propulsion of his mighty, spring-like muscles, he merely
bowed his back and strained tremendously. In response, a small thing of
dark steel emerged from the snow, followed closely by a log of heavy
wood. The lynx was caught in a trap by his right fore foot.

[Illustration: "HIS ROUND, SINISTER EYES GLARED PALELY INTO EVERY
COVERT."]

For a minute or two the panic-stricken beast went through a number of
more or less aimless contortions, spitting and screeching, biting at the
trap, and clawing frantically at the log. Presently, however, finding
that his contortions only made the thing that had him grip the harder
and hurt him the more savagely, he halted to consider his predicament.
Consideration not appearing to ease that urgent anguish in his paw, he
began to strain steadily backward, hoping, if he could not free himself,
at least to drag his captor into the woods and perhaps lose it among the
trees. The log, however, was very heavy, and his best efforts could move
it but a few inches at a time. When, at the end of an hour of fierce
struggle, he lay down utterly exhausted, he was still in the full glare
of the moon, still several feet fro