THE LIFE AND DEATH OF LUCY 127 
only way back was up the gorge. Lucy didn’t 
want to fight two dogs. She saw a tree, one of 
three or four pine trees down here beside the 
brook, growing close to the face of the cliff above 
_her, and rising fifty feet without a limb. Just 
as the first dog was almost on her, she sprang for 
this tree, and went up the trunk just as you’ve 
seen your cat go up a tree when the neighbor’s 
dog came into the yard. 
This was exactly what the hounds expected. 
Having treed their quarry, they began to bark 
excited signals to the hunters who were coming 
on behind (a long way behind, by now), and to 
jump around the base of the trunk. 
But Lucy kept on up into the branches. Once 
in their protection, she looked about her. Higher 
up a branch leaned out and almost touched the 
cliff face. Lucy went up to it, out along it, and 
measured the distance to the little ledge she saw 
on the cliff face. Then she sprang. ‘The dogs, 
seventy-five feet below, didn’t see her spring, nor 
hear her soft, padded paws land on the ledge. 
From this ledge a slanting crevice of the rock, 
or small chimney as a mountaineer would call it, 
