Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/145

 vividly that it was visible a long bowshot away. Not even the oldest hunter of the Cherokees had seen or heard of another puma bearing a mark like this upon its face. Hence none doubted the conjurers and the shamans when they said that this white spot on Koe Ishto's forehead was the mark of that Red Spirit who ranked first among the tribesmen's gods because he was the most ruthless of them all.

To all this, as Corane the Raven told it, Gilyan listened gravely. Yet there was mockery in his heart and deceit upon his lips. The very things that made Koe Ishto sacred to the Cherokee hunters rendered Gilyan all the more desirous of securing the puma's pelt.

Koe Ishto's great size and the white spot on his forehead, which Gilyan had seen for the first time on that May afternoon in the canebrake, distinguished him from all other pumas or panthers, as the early frontiersmen called the great forest cats, and would greatly enhance the value of his skin.

Moreover, Gilyan shared in full measure the typical frontier hunter's inordinate pride in his own woodcraft; and this pride had been ruffled and pricked. Outwardly he seemed to respect the Raven's wishes; but on each of his deer-hunting trips to Unaka he devoted at least two days to a