Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/14

 face was literally clawed to ribbons, and he was completely blinded. Mixed by an impulse of mercy, Merivale lifted his rifle and sent a soft-nosed bullet through the sufferer's spine. Then, very cautiously, he followed on up the grizzly's trail to see how it had fared with his antagonist.

Some thirty or forty yards farther on Merivale came upon the puma, lying dead and mangled in the trail, its ribs crushed in and one great wrenched from its socket. It was a female—clearly a mother in full milk. Merivale's sympathies were all with her, and as he stood looking down upon her and thought of the great fight she had put up against her huge adversary, he understood the whole situation. Obviously the wild mother had had her lair, and her helpless young, in some cleft of the rocks near by. She had seen the giant bear coming up the trail to the den. She had sprung down to meet him and join battle before he should get too near, and had given up her life for the sake of her little ones.

By this time Merivale had lost interest in the mountain sheep. What he wanted was to find the puma kittens, which he had heard were easily tamed. But first, after studying the dimensions of the dead mother, he went back and carefully considered the proportions of the grizzly, pondering till he had reconstructed the whole terrific combat which he had been so unfortunate as to