Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/94

86 His plan was to seize the log that extended down into the water, brace himself while he rescued the lamb, and either climb up the log or be carried on down and swim to the bank. He didn't know that the log was already occupied: that a great forest creature had come down to contest the lamb's life with him. He was full in the middle of the current, by now; and then, with a powerful lunge of his body, his arms swept about the log.

He braced himself, then turned in order to reach the lamb. He reached for a hold higher on the log. Something brown, with extended talons, rested upon the rough bark within a few inches of his hand, and at first he did not understand. Then the spray cleared from his eyes, and he knew the truth.

It was not a thing to forget: that wilderness scene in mid-stream in which Broken Fang and this man of cities came face to face for the first time. It made a grim and moving picture: the magnificent outline of the great cat in silhouette against the slowly brightening eastern sky; the lamb, struggling in the little patch of driftwood; the watching forest, the dark river with its ivory foam; and the gray half-light of dawn casting dimness over all. Yet there was no such folly as mistaking its reality. The form on the log was not just a shadow, an image, a drunken fancy. It was as real as the icy touch of the river and so near that he could see the