of spring came
creeping up the valley. The pussy willows put on their silvery furs,
the birches and elders unfurled their catkin tassels. Bands of deer
and elk began to drift back into the valley; the Bighorn eagerly
forsook the heights. The few coyotes that had remained throughout the
winter were joined by more of their kin; fresh bobcat tracks appeared
daily. The mountain lions that had trailed the deer and elk down to
warmer climes, returned close on their heels as their red records
testified. On my rambles I often came upon the scenes of their kills;
deer, elk and even wary sheep were their victims.

The wet, clinging, spring snows lent themselves readily as recording
tablets for the movements of all the woods folk. Not far from the
proposed site of my dream cabin, the story of a lion's stalk was
plainly told by tracks. He had climbed to the top of a rock that stood
ten feet above the level floor of the valley, a huge bowlder that had
rolled down from a crag above, torn its way through the ranks of the
trees and come to rest at last in the grassy meadow. There he lay in
wait for the slowly advancing, grazing deer.

As they approached the rock, the band had split; a section passing on
either side of the bowlder. Out and down the lion had leaped--ten feet
out and as far down. His momentum had overthrown his victim which had
regained its feet and struggled desperately. The turf was torn up for
thirty feet beyond the rock. I found only the tracks of the hind feet
of the lion; it was not hard to imagine that, his front claws were
fastened in the shoulders of his prey, and that his terrible teeth had
reached an artery in his victim's neck. Many such slaughters the soft
snow revealed! Aroused by them, I determined to revenge the shy,
innocent deer family. At every opportunity, I have taken toll of the
lion tribe. As soon as the first new grass painted the meadows pale
green, the sheep flocked down from their lofty winter resort: the
sunshine in the hemmed-in valley was hot; they still wore their heavy
winter coats, they grew lazy; hours on end they lay dozing, or moving
tranquilly about, feasting on the succulent young shoots. For six or
seven months,--it was at least that long ago since my discovery of
their uprising migration in Wild Basin--they had been living on dried
fare--unbaled hay--with no water to wash it down, for there were no
flowing springs about their airy castles. Snow was the only moist