Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/150

 it with a lucky shot as it dashed towards the cover of a wild rose thicket.

"What say you now, Gilyan?" he cried in high elation as he galloped back to his companions. "What say you now to my skill? Am I good enough yet, d'ye think, to hunt your great tawny cat of the sacred mountain—that Koe Ishto of the white spotted face whose hide you have promised me when we reach the Overhills?"

It was the time of the midday halt for rest and food. Most of the party had dismounted and were standing around the fire, where the turkey cock which Sir Alexander had killed was roasting, together with several haunches of venison brought in by Gilyan's hunters. Corane the Raven still sat his wiry Chicasaw pony a little apart from the others, but he was near enough to hear Sir Alexander's words.

For a fraction of a second his brows contracted; and Gilyan, watching the Indian keenly, saw that fleeting shadow of a frown. The white hunter laughed carelessly as he answered Sir Alexander's question.

"Koe Ishto is wise," he said, "the greatest and wisest of his kind. I have promised you that we shall hunt him when we camp under the Blue Mountains because you wish a panther skin for your lady. But as for promising you his hide, there is only one