Hunting the Lynx 21 



sounds his silver-throated horn, calls in the straying 

 dogs, and outlines the plan of action. A few hunters 

 are to go around the hill with the hounds, the rest are 

 to remain in the arroyo and keep the game within 

 bounds. You elect to go, and, making a long detour, 

 climb the slopes, the hounds entering the hills. Already 

 Music has the scent, and the blood-stirring melody, like 

 nothing else in the world, comes rippling through the 

 air, O-O^o-o, and is taken up by Melody, who is standing 

 looking at the scenery for a second, then she sends the 

 news down to the hunters below that not many hours 

 before a soft velvet-footed lynx passed that way from 

 some looting, and is not so far away. 



Again comes the baying of the hounds, pouring over 

 the hill and dropping into the little caftada, to be taken) 

 up by others. The hilltops here, six or eight hundred 

 feet above the sea, one hundred or more above the 

 arroyo, form a spur of the Sierra Madre, that reaches 

 down toward Los Angeles and to the east, merging into 

 the Puente Hills, a splendid winter highway for game 

 where there is cover, and for coyotes at any time. On 

 the surface were disconnected bunches of low brush, 

 giving the slopes a park-like effect, and farther on groves 

 of white oak with spreading branches beneath which 

 nodded the shooting-star, the mariposa lily and the 

 graceful stalks of Brodaea. 



Into this garden of the hills the hounds ran just 

 ahead of my horse, following the scent, now and then 

 baying soft and low, working through the tall grass 



