116 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
selves. But they stayed on together in the old 
den, knowing no other home, and hunted the 
mountain, sometimes scattered, sometimes in a 
pack, and often going hungry for all their efforts. 
Hence it was that Lucy and her brother, coming 
upon a fawn one day apart from its mother, 
sprang at it without hesitating. The brother 
missed it, but Lucy succeeded in landing on its 
‘back. It dove madly into the scrub, with the 
other cat at its heels, and almost before Lucy 
knew what was happening she was knocked from 
its shoulder by a terrific blow. Even as she 
landed, she saw her brother rise in the air and go 
spinning into the bushes as the mother doe caught 
him with her hind heels. Two sore and sick cats 
retired to the den and nursed their wounds for 
several days, before they were fit for hunting 
again. Experience is a hard teacher, but it had 
taught them not to tackle a small deer unless sure 
that it is quite alone. 
It was in December, when all four of them 
were hunting together, that they did come upon 
a young doe, hardly more than a fawn, quite 
alone. It was amid the pitch pines on the top of 
