24 Life in the Open 



and the eyes, which looked into mine, blazed with the 

 same yellow light you may see in the glance of the 

 black leopard. 



When I made an offensive movement, she stood up, 

 showing the long, powerful legs and the short tail, 

 which was twitching from side to side in a significant 

 fashion. I climbed higher and thrust a branch at her, 

 whereupon she darted out on to a limb, and with one 

 glance and snarl at me, went crashing down through 

 the resilient screen of green into the pack. 



When I dropped on to my horse again, the hunt 

 was sweeping up the arroyo and through the chaparral ; 

 coming to a cliff the lynx clambered up the side, but 

 was again driven out, two dogs rolling down forty or 

 more feet, then forced across the stream and treed in a 

 dense patch of brush, into which the infuriated hounds 

 vainly essayed to climb. 



From here she was finally dislodged, and in making 

 the leap she missed me by a very few inches. I had 

 dismounted and was holding my horse when I saw her 

 coming by my head, literally dropping out of the sky, 

 four paws out ; when she struck she bounded upward 

 like a ball, and the pack literally fell over me in their 

 attempts to reach her. But some miraculous dodging 

 power aided the tribe, as she again eluded them, and 

 was treed after a hard run through the chaparral, from 

 which she ran down through an arcade of wild grape 

 vines and reached the hills again, where she threw the 

 dogs off. A long stretch of country was scoured before 



