Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/121

Rh back; and Rusty, sitting on his haunches because once more his hind legs had given way, sent after him a bark of triumph and defiance.

This was the first meeting of Rusty, the little red Irish terrier, sometime member of the launch Sea Swallow's crew, and Longclaw, the big bay lynx, who for ten years or more had been king of all the preying beasts of the long narrow barrier island to which Rusty came by the grace of Providence when the Sea Swallow met her end. It was a strange whim of fate which brought the two together, for there was only one man who knew Longclaw the lynx and that one was Mat Norman, Rusty's master and god.

It was Norman who had given Longclaw his name. Woodsman as well as boatman, the Sea Swallow's skipper sometimes stopped at this island between the marshes and sea to spend a half day looking for sea-turtle nests in the sands, if the season was the season of turtles, or to wander in the dense woods of palmetto and pine, gnarled, stunted live oak and evergreen cassena, which covered the island's interior and in which many wild things had their homes. Several times on these trips Norman had noted the tracks of an unusually large wildcat, the largest wildcat tracks that he had ever seen. Be-