Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/27

 expert in all the essential arts of forest life, he was a poor thing to look at—a scraggy runt of a raccoon, scarcely more than half his proper size, boasting only a mere remnant of a tail, lacking four toes which steel traps had taken, walking always with a limp because another trap had crushed a hind foot. How he lost his tail is another story and does not matter. It was at the opposite end of his person that his brain was situated; and the important thing about Lotor was his brain.

That brain was busy now. It had been busy from the moment when Lotor's sharp eyes discerned the great horned owl winging silently toward the oak with prey hanging from his talons. In that moment the little raccoon, returning along one of the oak's main limbs after a raid on certain clusters of wild grapes, had frozen into absolute immobility. Thirty feet from him Eyes o' Flame came to rest in the oak; and Lotor, watching through a screen of leaves which hid him from the owl, waited with that vast, patience which was a basic ingredient of his wisdom.

There was stored away in Lotor's brain considerable knowledge of horned owls. When this owl did not begin at once to devour the prey which he had taken, the little raccoon knew that it might be worth his while to keep watch from his ambush; and while he watched, his sharp eyes shot quick glances to right and left, searching the surrounding trees.