12 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



winking, palely-luminous eyes, and sur- 

 rounded by sharp ears fantastically tufted. 

 In colour he was all of a shadowy, light grey, 

 faintly toned on back and flanks with a 

 brownish yellow. His grotesque but extra- 

 ordinarily powerful hindquarters were finished 

 off with a straight stub of a tail, perhaps three 

 inches or four in length. He might, in fact, 

 have looked like a caricature, but for the 

 appearance of power and speed and deadly 

 efficiency which he conveyed, the suggestion 

 of menace in every movement. 



Under the necessity of the Hungry Month, 

 the big lynx had visited this clearing once 

 before, prowling as near as he dared, in the 

 first shadows of late afternoon. He had seen 

 in the yard a couple of cows which were too 

 big to interest him. What was more to his 

 purpose, he had seen some huddling sheep. 

 Then a draught of icy air blowing from the 

 direction of the house had borne to his 

 nostrils the dreaded scent of man, and he 

 had slunk off hurriedly to his coverts. But 

 those sheep ! The smell of them, the re- 

 membered relish of a lamb which he had 

 once devoured in the thickets, stung his 

 appetite to madness. Like most of the wild 

 creatures, he had learned, either from instinct 

 or experience, that man was less to be dreaded 



