Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/214

196 did not feed slowly, like the deer. It was to be a chase then. Again he trotted within one hundred feet of the girl.

Three times more he tried to stalk before he finally gave it up altogether. This game was like the porcupine,—simply to be chased down and taken. As in the case of all animals that hunt their game by overtaking it, there was no longer any occasion for going silently. The thing to do was to come close and spring from the trail behind.

Though the fear was mostly gone, the cougar retained enough of that caution that most wild animals exhibit when hunting a new game so that he did n't attempt to strike Snowbird down at once. But as the chase went on, his passion grew upon him. Ever he crept nearer. And at last he sprang full into the thickets beside her.

At that instant she had shot for the first time. Because the light had left his eyes before she could find aim, both shots had been clean misses. And terrible as the reports were, he was too engrossed in the chase to be frightened away by mere sound. This was the cry the man-pack always made,—these sudden, startling sounds in the silence. But he felt no pain. He crouched a moment, shivering. Then he bounded on again.