Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/200

182 step than is customary with the wild denizens of the woods. A wolf, for instance, can simply drift when it wishes, and the silence of a cougar is a name. Yet unless her pursuer were a dog, which seemed entirely unlikely, it was certainly one of these two. She would have liked very much to believe the step was that of Old Woof, the bear, suddenly curious as to what this dim light of hers might be; but she could n't bring herself to accept the lie. Woof, except when wounded or cornered, is the most amiable creature in the Oregon woods, and it would give her almost a sense of security to have him waddling along behind her. The wolves and cougar, remembering the arms of Woof, would not be nearly so curious. But unfortunately, the black bear had never done such a thing in the memory of man, and if he had, he would have made six times as much noise. He can go fairly softly when he is stalking, but when he is obliged to trot—as he would be obliged to do to keep up with a swift-walking human figure—he cracks twigs like a rolling log. She had the impression that the animal behind had been passing like smoke at first, but was n't taking the trouble to do it now.

The sound was a soft pat-pat on the trail,—sometimes entirely obliterated but always recurring when she began to believe that she had