Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/196

 before he saw another of its kind. He wanted to learn all he could about this one before he shot it.

Black Bull, unconscious of the scrutiny, impatiently awaiting the puma whose coming he still expected, stood in an open sunny spot midway between two giant white oaks whose boughs interlaced forty feet above him. For a space of minutes he stood thus, tossing his head and stamping, a superb picture of massively proportioned strength and defiant fearlessness. Then, as no enemy answered his challenge, he turned broadside to the hunter and walked slowly toward the larger white oak.

Burliegh moved not a muscle. His practiced eye told him that the bull was going to lie down; and he would probably lie with his back to the sun, thus facing away from the hunter and making possible a closer approach.

It was as Burliegh expected, but even better. The great bull moved deliberately across the glade, chose a shady place close to the oak, lowered his massive body to the ground with a sinuous writhing of bulging muscles under the sleek hide of his hind quarters. Not only was his head turned away from the hunter but the latter knew that the vital spot behind the bull's shoulder was widely exposed for a fatal shot.

Burliegh touched the Chickasaw pony's flank