Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/172

Rh these Northern woods, a most formidable one. A man can live in the woods for years and never see one, and yet some day the supple yellow panther will stand in front of him on some woodland path as though he had come there by magic. Not a footfall or sound of breaking twig will give any warning of his coming. He will simply be there; it is a trick of his, and he always takes the same position, calmly looking at you without curiosity and without fear, very rarely if ever crouching, and growling, if at all, in a gentle, sing-song drawl, more like purring than anything else.

With a low flattened head, the little ears drawn back, softly poised on sinewy, tawny legs and velvet pads, and with the long sweeping tail gently going from right to left and left to right with a quiet, steady motion, the cou- 152