Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/148

 this familiar topic which was almost a hobby with him. He opened the door.

“Let’s sit here,” he said. “The wild things will soon begin to talk. I’ll try and interpret their notes as they come. There’s probably one man out of ten thousand who really understands half of what he hears in the woods at night.”

They sat together on the sill and Moran told her many things. He realized that the girl had stayed there night after night alone, assailed by all the imaginary dangers that besiege the mind of each novice in the hills. He explained away many man-made superstitions surrounding the creatures of the wild. Flash wedged in between them and as they talked he felt the dying out of that strangeness, the lessening of restraint between them.

“It must be a panther, I think,” she told Moran. She noted the almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Why not? Don’t they live here?” she asked.

“Yes—only they’re called lions here,” he said. “The panther, puma, cougar arid the mountain lion are the same animal, only differently named according to locality. I’ve known and studied them under all four names. I’ve lived in hopes—but