Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/184

 cow stiffened and crouched, the cold eyes narrowed and gleamed. But Keenta walked on, smiling a little in satisfaction with his own valor. Calmly he knelt beside the calf. He could no longer see the puma, because his back was turned. He knew that at one bound the huge cat could strike him lifeless. Yet he stopped to stroke the calf and to speak to it gently.

"Little black bull," he said, "Ahowhe, who sent me to hunt, has saved you, for the great beast yonder would have killed you had I not come. With Ahowhe you will be safe, for she loves all young things. And some day you will be known as Yanasa, the Very Great Bull, the Master of the Herds."

Slowly he lifted the calf and slung it across his broad bare shoulders. Turning, he faced the puma and made with his right hand the stately gesture of farewell. Then he strode off along the canebrake trail.

Burliegh, the English hunter, coming down to Charles Town with a small mounted caravan from the trading posts of the Muskogee country, camped for the night near the head of the great cypress swamp. Again it was spring, the season of late jasmine and Indian rose. At first dawn Burliegh,