THE COWARDLY COUGAR 



of his voice and holding up a limp fore leg> 

 while, securely wedged in a narrow fork over- 

 head, Fanny appeared to be taking a swim- 

 ming lesson, meanwhile uttering one ear- 

 splitting shriek upon another. 



Her cries were not of agony, as I momen- 

 tarily feared, nor was Tub's injury the result 

 of a blow from the lioness. He had wrenched 

 his leg, and Fanny well, Fanny's figure was 

 not what it had been before those puppies 

 came; hence her mishap. 



No; the deer-devouring career of that 

 cougar had ended in the very act of kicking 

 off that limb, and the dogs were worrying her 

 when we arrived. We allowed them to think 

 they had done the killing, which, I learned, is 

 a part of the game. 



"We got her easy, didn't we?" Ambrose 

 said, wiping the sweat out of his eyes. "We'll 

 top out before dark, if we hurry." 



"I won't," Fred firmly declared, "unless I 

 find the rest of my pants on the way up." He 

 backed into a thick brush clump, where he 

 blushed a dull brick red every time we looked 

 at him. "What a fellow needs for this busi- 

 jness," said he, " is a pair of sole-leather running 

 tights." 



