o watch.

First the animal leapt to a branch of a wind-beaten tree and crouched
along its limb, lying so still that, had they not seen it move, they
might have glanced squarely in that direction and never noticed. And
there it lay, sharpening its claws, cat fashion.

Suddenly it began narrowing its yellow eyes at what must have been a
movement behind the rock whence it had emerged. Gathering its feet for a
spring, it laid its ears back, and the great muscles rippling beneath its
skin, leapt at a second lion whose head could now be seen peering around
the rock. But did they fight? Not a bit of it! With hiss and arching
back, and all claws out like the picture of a witch cat, the young cougar
challenged his playfellow, then retreated as the other would have given
him a swipe of his paw. Back to his tree he raced, the other after him.
But no sooner had he reached the vantage point of his horizontal branch
than he turned and chased the other back. This play was repeated several
times, while the three men watched to the windward, silent and
motionless, and hence unseen by the near-sighted animals.

A small rock had been loosened by their scramble, and as it went rolling
over the granite slope, the first cat pounced after it playfully, finally
catching the rolling stone and leaping about it as a cat does a mouse.
Then he retired to his tree.

Norris, reflecting that the near presence of two such animals would
stampede the burros, picked up a stone and threw it at the lion,
intending, not to hit it, but to chase it away. To the surprise of the
onlookers, the huge cat pounced on the stone as playfully as before. Ace
now hurled a small rock so that it just escaped the tawny flank, but
again she pounced, as playful as a kitten, at each missile, and it was
not till the three men rose and shouted that the lion took alarm and
raced away.

"I declare!" exclaimed Pedro, when he heard about it, "I'd never have
believed it!"

"I was out in Devil's Gulch one day," remarked Long Lester, "with a
coupla dogs. It's all granite,--hard for the dogs to get a scent, but
there's lots of lions there, in among the rocks. Finally, though, they
got one into a little Digger Pine. I took a shot at her, and out she
tumbled."

"Dead?" asked Norris.

"Yes. The dogs found her den, and dragged out three cubs."

"How large?"

"About the size of house cats, that's all."

"Then what?"

"Oh, I put 'em into my shirt and tuk 'em home. I sold 'em a