264 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



to collect our scattered belongings, and ascertain the 

 damage done. 



After breakfasting on the everlasting salmon, 

 Cecily and I made our way to the spot where we left 

 the meat on the previous evening. I rather wanted 

 to retrieve the feet of my moose in order that they 

 might be set up somehow. We travelled very softly, 

 as it behoves a hunter to do in a part of the world in 

 which the most unexpected things happen at any 

 moment. We stopped to pick and eat a few salmon 

 berries which grew in profusion near the place where 

 the headless moose lay. 



Suddenly, with very little parting of the under- 

 brush, a hunched, cat-like form streaked along, a 

 piece of thieved meat between its jaws. Cecily, 

 quicker than I can set it down, had her rifle up, and 

 the quick bullet caught the retreating animal in the 

 hindquarter. It was a lynx, and a very well set up 

 specimen too. On being hit the poor creature gave 

 the most piercing shriek, a concentrated essence of 

 cat-calling, and bowled over and over. Cecily, 

 worried at her failure to kill her beast outright, and 

 grieving for its pain, ran forward, and the cat, with 

 amazing dexterity, turned with flattened ears and 

 vicious, snarling face, and shot towards my cousin 

 with arrow-like swiftness. It flew straight at the calf 

 of Cecily's leg, and its teeth struck in, through gaiters 

 and all, and clung there, tooth and nail. 



Impeded by the gripping terror the victim could do 

 but little to free herself, and I ran in, laying my rifle 

 down. I seized a stout gnarled stick which lay con- 



