The Boy and the Lynx 
In the middle of it were two enormous musk- 
rat or beaver-houses, far bigger than the big- 
gest she ever before had seen. They were | Ip 
made partly of logs and situated, not in a pond, | willl 
but ona dry knoll. Walking about them were a i mt 
number of Partridges, that is, birds like Par- eu 
tridges, only larger and of various colors, red, 
yellow, and white. 
She quivered with the excitement that in a 
man would have been called buck-fever. Food 
—food—abundance of food, and the old hunt- 
£- “i 
ress sank to earth. Her breast was on the 19 fi ss va Va | 
ground, her elbows above her back, as she made de a a as i } " 
stalk, her shrewdest, subtlest stalk ; one of those Ke ye / 
Partridges she must have at any price; notrick ‘" a j 
now must go untried, no error in this hunt; if ee 
it took hours—all day—she must approach with A 
certainty to win before the quarry took to flight. 
Only a few bounds it was from wood shelter 
ia. 
a f 
cae ee \ 
oe 
eee, 
iz 
ona ee 
——se | 
— 
to the great rat-house, but she was an hour in ke : 
crawling that small space. From stump to io en 2 A 
brush, from log to bunch of grass she sneaked, yee Foe 8 
a flattened form, and the Partridges saw her Uy, 4S 
j 
ait 
not. They fed about, the biggest uttering the oa XS 
ringing call that first had fallen on her ear. 
li) 
