Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/118

 long leap, one deep thrust of needle teeth meeting point to point in the throat, and the thing was done.

Suddenly all sense of fear vanished. Ears flattened, fangs gleaming, the lynx bunched his sinewy body for the spring.

Rusty, the red Irish terrier, was dreaming—dreaming of old days on the Sea Swallow with Mat Norman, of quiet voyages along the winding marsh creeks behind the barrier islands, of venturesome trips on the open ocean, when fair weather tempted the Sea Swallow's skipper to save time and distance by passing from inlet to inlet outside the island chain. Ona sudden the dream ended. Rusty stirred restlessly and opened his eyes. Slowly and feebly he raised his head and looked about him.

Around the arc of a half-circle his gaze swept a peaceful panorama of sea and sky and sloping, clean-swept strand. Then the movement of his head ceased, his body quivered, the short wiry hair of his nape and back stiffened and stood erect.

Wide, round, pale yellow eyes, stern and cruel as death, glared into his; eyes aglow with fierce fires of hate, yet hard and cold as jewels; eyes set in a broad, bearded face of implacable ferocity. As if by some compelling hypnotic power, they held Rusty spellbound and motionless; and, sudden and swift as the stab of a sword, fear entered Rusty's heart. For a fraction of time his life hung by a thread.