Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/63

Rh another, more deadly animal had spoken in this case. On a few occasions he had heard members of his club—back from hunting trips in the West—describe the cries of the cougars or pumas: one of the most distinctive and awe-inspiring of all the wilderness voices. It is not heard often. Many men have lived years in the forest without ever hearing it at all. But once heard it is never forgotten. Hugh believed that he had heard it now.

And it had meant more to him than the mere night cry of an animal. It typified to him the very spirit of the wilderness. It was the voice not alone of a hungry creature, stalking in the shadows, but—in his thought—it expressed all the ancient terror of the darkness, the primeval forces that war with man.

Nothing had changed. Still the sheep slept in the meadow and a great beast of prey menaced them from the shadowed forest. The long conflicts against the powers of the wilderness had not yet been won: the shepherds of Judea might have known the same cry. The fire burned low, and it seemed to Hugh that the shadows gathered menacingly about the sheep.

Perhaps Broken Fang himself had spoken. Besides its menace and savagery the voice had been also a living expression of power and pride that only one of the greatest of wilderness creatures would possess. No craven coyote, he believed, could utter such a ringing challenge.