Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/200

192 is the forest name for the rattlesnake, and no man who has seen the evil diamonds in his head can doubt that it is a good one. And mercy is the one thing that can never be expected from the rattler. It is the same as saying that it will be a snowy day in July when the wolf cannot turn the most far-spread disaster to his own account. Everything always turns out all right for the gray rangers. And maybe that is the reason why, in spite of endless centuries of warfare with men, they still fill the autumn woods with their songs.

But Broken Fang, the great tawny king of the pumas, and all his lithe and deadly younger brethren almost starved to death. Their whole hunting success depended on a noiseless stalk upon a breed of creatures with ears sharp enough to hear the predatory beetles utter their kill screams in the air, and even the feline cushioned feet could not step with silence in the dry brush. At first there was only gnawing hunger and distemper, then frantic ferocity, and finally almost a madness wherein blue lights dwelt ever in their eyes and agonized convulsions came to the muscles of their throats. Even the porcupines heard them come in time to climb out to the end of the tree limbs, and by the middle of September Broken Fang was ready and willing to lie in ambush a whole night for the sake of a chipmunk that might venture forth from its nest.

The instinct of all the creatures was to climb