Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/238



the still midday, desperate and half-mad with hunger, Broken Fang, the cougar, came stealing along a narrow pass in the high ranges of Smoky Land. He hadn't had a great deal of success with the mountain creatures. The previous day he had caught a little pika on the sliderock; once a mountain grouse had failed to detect him lying like a tawny piece of crag beside a pass, but the great bighorn themselves had mostly been able to keep out of his way.

In the first place he was under the great disadvantage of fighting in the enemy's country. The cougars are never quite at home in the high mountains. They are essentially a lowland people, and they have no love for the fields of glittering snow. They need trees in which to hide, brush thickets to wait in till the deer graze near by. The narrow passes, the rugged precipices, and the high knife-edge trails were the natural habitats of the wild sheep, but Broken Fang liked better walking. Besides, he didn't know the country.

If any one supposes that animals do not have to learn the geographical nature of a hunting ground before they are really adept in it, it is