CHAPTER XXVI 

 THE LYNX AT BAY 



ONE of the few rewarding episodes of this voyage took 

 place on the last morning, July 27. We were half a 

 mile from Charleston Harbour when one of the In- 

 dians said "Cheesay" (Lynx) and pointed to the south 

 shore. There, on a bare point a quarter mile away, we 

 saw a large Lynx walking quietly along. Every oar 

 was dropped and every rifle seized, of course, to repeat 

 the same old scene; probably it would have made no 

 difference to the Lynx, but I called out: "Hold on there! 

 I'm going after that Cheesay." 



Calling my two reliables, Preble and Billy, we set 

 out in the canoe, armed, respectively, with a shotgun, 

 a club, and a camera. 



When we landed the Lynx was gone. We hastily 

 made a skirmishing line in the wood where the point 

 joined the mainland, but saw no sign of him, so 

 concluded that he must be hiding on the point. Billy 

 took the right shore, Preble the left, I kept the middle. 

 Then we marched toward the point but saw nothing. 

 There were no bushes except a low thicket of spruce, 

 some 20 feet across and 3 or 4 feet high. This was too 

 dense to penetrate standing, so I lay down on my breast 

 and proceeded to crawl in under the low boughs. I 

 had not gone six feet before a savage growl warned me 



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