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 rearing at the end of the stout leather leash. The lynx, hideously besmeared with blood, still lay on its side as if dead; but the yellow eyes were open and it still breathed, the breath coming in quick gasps. The boy moved towards his gun lying in the grass, breeched it, and slipped a shell into the empty barrel. When he turned towards the lynx again he saw that it had moved its head slightly and that the eyes were fixed upon him, steady, unwinking, unafraid.

A long time the boy looked into the translucent depths of them, his gun half raised to his shoulder. He was not happy. Suddenly the thought came to him that this was a cowardly business and a shoddy victory, this victory that he had won over Byng—it was Byng that he thought of now, not Lynx Lucifer—hampered and crippled by the steel trap clinging to his forefoot, Byng who had fought so magnificently an utterly hopeless fight. He lowered the gun and laid it on the grass, then stooped beside the lynx.

Watching the yellow eyes narrowly, though he believed that the animal was too weak to use tooth or claw, he felt the skin of its throat and chest. It was as Mayfield had said; the hide was not torn; all the blood of that bloody battle had come from the dog. Still watching those eyes, and alert to withdraw his hand quickly at the first hostile move,