Kitty 



and swelling my heart, with the splendid action of 

 my horse carrying me on the wings of the wind, was 

 glorious answer and fullness to the call and hunger 

 of a hunter s blood. 



But as such moments must be, they were brief. 

 The lion leaped gracefully into the air, splintering 

 the bark from a pine fifteen feet up, and crouched on 

 a limb. The hounds tore madly round the tree. 



&quot; Full-grown female,&quot; said Jones calmly, as we 

 dismounted, &quot; and she s ours. We ll call her Kitty.&quot; 



Kitty was a beautiful creature, long, slender, 

 glossy, with white belly and black-tipped ears and 

 tail. She did not resemble the heavy, grimfaced 

 brute that always hung in the air of my dreams. 

 A low, brooding menacing murmur, that was not a 

 snarl nor a growl, came from her. She watched the 

 dogs with bright, steady eyes, and never so much as 

 looked at us. 



The dogs were worth attention, even from us, who 

 certainly did not need to regard them from her per 

 sonally hostile point of view. Don stood straight up, 

 with his forepaws beating the air; he walked on his 

 hind legs like the trained dog in the circus; he yelped 

 continuously, as if it agonized him to see the lion 

 safe out of his reach. Sounder had lost his identity. 

 Joy had unhinged his mind and had made him a dog 

 of double personality. He had always been unsoci- 



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