Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/191

Rh battle it off before she half slid, half dropped to the ground, landing clumsily on all fours in the sand.

She knew what was the chief matter. She needed food. The memory of the bacon was keen and she dragged herself about in the cold dark until she found the pan and then, one by one, the half-cooked strips, carrying them to her eager mouth. She found the coffee pot, managed to grip the handle and found it not quite empty. There was grit on the bacon, the little coffee left was thick with grounds, but she munched and swallowed all as manna from the wilderness, finding fresh strength running through her.

As she straightened up from her meal, she saw something that made her shrink back against the wall of the cave, horror tingling over her scalp and down her spine, seeming to bristle the soft hairs of her neck. Two greenly lambent eyes glowed in the dark entrance, she caught the inquisitive sniff of some wild beast that had scented the bacon, or her. Her hands were tied. She was utterly defenceless against claws and fangs. The eyes lowered and she imagined the head of a mountain lion sinking as the brute crouched for a spring. To move was to invite destruction. For seconds she waited in an agony of apprehension. The brute sniffed again. The thought came to her, welcome as a drawn sword, that lions did not sniff. They growled. This was a cowardly coyote, disturbed perhaps by the falling rockslide, seeking a refuge or tempted by the bacon with which she had forestalled it. If it scented her it was with doubt and fear. Even