the voice of the pack by MARSHALL CHAPTER IV continued 14 he called once to lennox snatched the shotgun that still where he had placed it in the corner of the room and hastened to the corral the mare whiskered whick ered plaintively when be took her from her food hen snowbird first heard the step in the thickets beside her she halted bravely and held her lantern high she understood at last the very extremity of the beams found a reflection in two very curious circles of greenish fire a fire that was old upon the world before man eer rubbed two sticks together to strike a flame of course the dim rays had simply been reflected on the eyes of some areat beast of prey she identified it at once only the ees of the felines with vertical pu alls have this identical greenish glare the eyes of the wolves glow in the darkness but the circles are usually bright points of course it was a cou gar she cry out again realizing at last the reality of her peril her long training in the mountains came to her aid that did not mean she was not truly and terribly afraid the beast was hunting her she doubt this fact curiosity might make a lion follow her but it would never beget such a wild light of madness in his e es as this she had just seen she simply clamped down all her moral strength on her rising hysteria and looked her situation in the face her hand flew instinctively to her side and the pistol leaped in the lantern light but the eyes had already blinked out before she could raise the weapon she shot twice the echoes roared back unbelievably loud in the silence and then abruptly died and the only sound was a rustling of leaves as the cougar crouched she sobbed once then hurried on she was afraid to listen at first she wanted to believe that her pistol fire would frighten the animal from her trail she knew under ordinary con that it would if he still followed it could mean but one thing that some unheard of incident had oc burred to destroy his fear of men it would mean that he had knowingly aset upon her trail and was hunting her with all the age old remorselessness that Is the code of the mountains for a little while all was silence then out of the hush the thickets suddenly crashed and shook on the opposite side of the trail slie fired blind ly into the thicket then she caught herself with a sob but two shells remained in her pistol and they must be saved for the test the cougar remembering the lessons of his youth turned from the trill when he had first heard snowbirds Snow birds step he had crouched and let her pass she was walking into the wind and as she was at the closest point a message had blown back to him the hair went straight on his shoulders and along his spine ills blood running boldan instant before from fc armade a great leap in his veins A picture came in his dark mind the chase for a deer when the moon had set the stir of a ihling thing that broke twigs in the thickets and the leap be had made there had been blood that night the and the madness and the exultation of the kill of course there had been terror first but the terror had soon departed and left something lying warm and still in the thickets it was the same game that walked his trail in front game that died easily and yet in a vague way he did not understand the noblest game of all it was living flesh to tear with talon and tang all his training all the instincts am aued in him by a thousand generations of cougars who knew this greatest fear were simply obliterated by the sudden violence of his hunting mad ness he had tasted this blood once and it could never be forgotten the flame leaped in his eyes and then he began the stalk A cougar trying to creep silently on its game does not move quickly it simply steals as a serpent steals through the grass stalked for a period of five minutes to learn that the prey wis farther away from him at every step lie trotted forward until he came close and again he stalked again he found after a few minutes of silent creeping through the thickets that he had lost distance evidently this game did not feed slowly like the deer it was to be a chase then again he trotted one hundred feet of the gari three times more he tried to stalk before he finally gave it up altogether this game was like the porcupine to be chased down and taken and in the case of all thit hunt their game by overtaking it there was no longer any occasion tor going silently the thing to do was to come close and spring from the trail behind though the fear ans mostly gone the cougar retained enough of that caution that most wild animals ex when hunting a new game so that he attempt to strike snowbird down at once but as the chase hent on ahlff passion grew upon him ever he crept nearer and at last he sprang full into the thickets beside her at that instant she had shot or the arst time because the light had left his eyes before she could find aim both shots had been dean misses and terrible as the reports were he was too engrossed in the chase to be frightened away by mere sound this was the cry the man pack always made these sudden startling sounds in the silence but he felt no pain he crouched a moment shivering then he bounded on again the third shot was a too in fact there had been no chance for a hit A sound in the darkness Is as unreliable a target as can possibly be imagined and it frighten him as much as the others lie waited crouching and the girl started on she was making other sounds now queer whimpering sounds not greatly different from the bleat that the fawn utters when it dies it was a fear sound and if there Is one emotion with which the wild beasts are acquainted quain ted in all its phase it Is fear she was afraid of him then and that meant he need no longer be in the least afraid of her ills skin began to twitch all 0 er with that terrible mad ness and passion of the flesh hunters this game was like the deer and the thing to do was lie in wait there was only one trail he afraid of losing her in the darkness she was neither fleet like the deer nor courageous like woof the bear lie had only to wait and leap from the darkness when she passed when dan falling riding like mad over the mountain trail heard the third shot from snowbirds Snow birds pistol he felt that one of tha debts he owed had come due at last he seemed to know she shot twice as the darkness pressed around him that he was to be tried in the fire and the horse staggered beneath him as he tried to hasten he showed no mercy to his mount horseflesh horse flesh made for carrying a heavy man over such a trail as this and she was red and lath ered before halt a mile had been covered he made her leap up the rocks and on leel stretches he loosed the reins and lashed her into a gallop only a mountain horse could hive stood that test he gave no thought to his own safety his counge was at the test nd no risk of his own life must interfere with his attempt to save snowbird from the danger that threatened her he know when the horse would fall with him and precipitate him down a precipice and he was perfectly aware that to crash into a low hanging limb of one of the great trees beside the trail would probably crush his skull but he took the chance and before the ride was done he found himself plead ing with the horse even as he lashed her sides with his whip the lesser forest creatures sprang from his trail and once the mare leaped high to miss a dark shadow that crossed in front As she caught her stride dan heard a squeal and a rattle of quills thit identified the crea ture as a porcupine bv now I 1 e had passed the first of the worst grades coming out upon a long easy slope of open forest again he urged his horse leaving to her keen senses alone the choking of the path between the great tree trunks then he heard snowbyrd fire for the fourth time and he knew that he had almost overtaken her the report seemed to smash tho clr and he bathed lathed his horse into the fastest run copyright 1920 by little brown co i she knew a wild sobbing figure la the darkness bhe s only got one shot more he said he knew how many bullets her pistol carried and the danger whatever it was must be just at hand underbrush der brush cracked beneath him and then the horse drew up with a jerk that almost hurled him from the saddle lie lashed at her in vain she wag not afraid in the darkness aud the rocks of the trail but some terror in the woods in front had in an instant broken his control over her she reared snorting then danced in an impotent circle meanwhile precious seconds were fleeing HP understood now the horse stood still shivering beneath him but would not advance a step the silence deepened somewhere in the darkness before him a great cougar was waiting by the trail and snowbird hoping for the moment that it had given up the chase was hastening through the shadows squarely into its ambush crouched lower and again his long serpent of a tall began the little vertical motion that always precedes his leap he had not forgotten the wild rapture of that moment he had inadvertently sprung on landy elldreth Hll dreth or how after his terror had died he had come creeping hack he hunted his own way batting on the trail and his madness was at its height he was not just the coward that runs at the shadow of a tall form in the thickets the consummation was complete and that single experience of a month before had made of him a hunter of men nis muscles set tor the leap so intent was he that his keen senses detect the fact that here was a curious echo to the girl a footsteps dan falling had slipped down from his terrified horse and was running up the trail behind her praying that he could be in time snowbird heard the pat pat of his feet but at first she did not dare to hore that aid had come to her she had thought of dan as on the tar away marshes and her father the only other illig occupant of this part of the divide might even now be lying dead in his housein her terror she had lost all power of interpretation of events the sound might be the cougars mate or even the wolf pack jealous of his game sobbing she hurried on into ambush then she beard a voice and it seemed to be calling to her snowbird I 1 m coming snowbird a man s strong voice was shouting she whirled with a sob of thankfulness at that instant the cougar sprang terrified though she was snow birds reflexes had kept sure and true even as the great cat leaped a long lithe shadow out ot the shidow her finger pressed back against the trigger of her pistol she had been carrying her pun in front ot her and she 11 his last time with no conscious effort it was just a last instinctive effort to defend herself one other element affected the issue she had whirled to answer dan s cry just as the cougar left the ground but she had still been in range the only effect was to lessen lo 10 some degree the accuracy of the spring the bullet caught the beast in midair but even if it had reached its heart the momentum of the attack was too great to be completely overcome snowbird only knew that some vast resistless power had struck her and that the darkness seemed to roar and explode about her hurled to her face in the trail she did not see the cougar sprawl on the earth beside her the flame in the lantern almost flicked out as it fell from her band then flashed up and down from the deepest gloom to a glare with something of the effect of lightning flickering in the sky nor did she hear the first frenzied thrashing of the wounded animal kindly unconsciousness had fallen obscuring this and also the sight of tho great cat in the agony of its wound creeping with broken shoulder and bared claws across the pine needles toward her defenseless body TO BE CONTINUED