54 Recreations of a Sportsman 



a huge crevice in the wall of the canon, where 

 he opened the sleeping- bag and crawled in for 

 a brief rest. He was aroused by the cries of 

 the child; and after feeding it and taking 

 some food himself, he again started out into the 

 snow. 



Suddenly, like a mental spectre, came the feel- 

 ing that he was being followed; it came so 

 quickly that a shudder went vibrating over him, 

 and instinctively he stopped and looked back, 

 and would have sworn that some one or some 

 living thing moved back from his trail. Seized 

 with a frenzy of excitement, he drew his revolver 

 and dropped behind a rock, crouching like a 

 human panther, ready to spring. He heard a 

 wild cry, half human in its intonation it came 

 again, again, and still again ; a mountain lion 

 was on his trail. At first it was a relief, and 

 he laughed aloud, for he had many a time put 

 his knife into a lion to save his dogs, and he 

 knew the trick of lions' following men, though 

 rarely attacking them. But there had been in- 

 stances of man-killing lions, and perhaps this 

 w r as one. He fortified himself behind the rock 

 and tried to sleep, revolver in hand; but the 

 child cried and moaned, and he feared that if 

 the lion were creeping near, it might hear : so 

 pulling himself together he again faced the storm 

 with a sense of dread in his heart, and pushed 

 on far into the night, at last literally falling 



