22 Life in the Open 



until they came to the oaks, when Music gave the signal 

 and the entire pack broke into the volume of sounds 

 that tells of fresh scent. Few horses with a drop of 

 sporting blood in their veins can resist the sound, and 

 mine reared, plunged, and pawed the air in eagerness 

 to run ; but the hounds had not found the game, and I 

 followed slowly while they made the welkin ring. I 

 could hear the answering baying from over the cliff in 

 the arroyo as I rode into the oak grove, then over the 

 divide to the south slope. 



The hounds were now running at full speed, past the 

 cactus patches, along rocky slopes, down into a deep 

 cafton where the baying broke into a roar, and then over 

 the edge of the arroyo a fourth of a mile above, where 

 my horse, settling down upon his haunches, slid down 

 with the miniature avalanche, then running down-stream 

 at full speed to find the hounds out on the face of a cliff 

 crawling along on narrow ledges, slipping and rolling, 

 while in the very centre of the stage, in full sight, was 

 the lynx. She appeared to ignore the hounds, stopping 

 now and then to glance behind, then picking her way 

 along, step by step, looking down at the horses, again 

 stopping to weigh the chances of the situation. 



It seemed impossible for a dog to reach her, but Don 



A and I knew that Music was a sort of canine fly, 



and he quickly gave a vivid demonstration of it, crawl- 

 ing out on the trail of the big cat, now perfectly silent, 

 while other dogs made the arroyo ring with sounds. 

 The lynx was surrounded. She faced a dog in front, 



