RED SLAYER AND THE TERROR 251 
mediately, once more the hunter, not the hunted, 
and with a clump of dead goldenrod for cover 
stalked his game, and brought the prey back to 
his cache in the wall. His heart was beating nor- 
mally when he reached his hole. Warm and 
satisfied, he slunk into the burrow, and went to 
sleep. 
It was two days later that the Terror came. 
The sky had been gray and overcast all day, 
and when Red Slayer started out from his wall 
across the open snow, toward evening, he cast no 
shadow. Neither was it easy to make out ob- 
jects against the dull and neutral sky. But he 
wasn’t looking upward with any care, to be sure, 
for out here on the open he had no fear of the 
great horned owls, who lived in the forest above 
and were not at all likely to come out over the 
pasture, not while there was daylight, at any rate. 
There were no hawks, now, in the dead of winter. 
With so much open space about him, in fact, he 
had no fears at all, and went leaping along over 
the crust joerc ree thinking only of his pos- 
sible kill. 
Then, with startling suddenness, he was aware 
