wolf. He knew that when on its back the fierce cat was most dangerous.
One rip of its powerful hindfeet could disembowel him.

Behind him he heard Gray Wolf sobbing and crying, and he knew that she
was terribly hurt. He was filled with the rage and strength of two dogs,
and his teeth met through the flesh and hide of the cat's throat. But
the big lynx escaped death by half an inch. It would take a fresh grip
to reach the jugular, and suddenly Kazan made the deadly lunge. There
was an instant's freedom for the lynx, and in that moment it flung
itself back, and Kazan gripped at its throat--_on top_.

The cat's claws ripped through his flesh, cutting open his side--a
little too high to kill. Another stroke and they would have cut to his
vitals. But they had struggled close to the edge of the rock wall, and
suddenly, without a snarl or a cry, they rolled over. It was fifty or
sixty feet to the rocks of the ledge below, and even as they pitched
over and over in the fall, Kazan's teeth sank deeper. They struck with
terrific force, Kazan uppermost. The shock sent him half a dozen feet
from his enemy. He was up like a flash, dizzy, snarling, on the
defensive. The lynx lay limp and motionless where it had fallen. Kazan
came nearer, still prepared, and sniffed cautiously. Something told him
that the fight was over. He turned and dragged himself slowly along the
ledge to the trail, and returned to Gray Wolf.

Gray Wolf was no longer in the moonlight. Close to the two rocks lay the
limp and lifeless little bodies of the three pups. The lynx had torn
them to pieces. With a whine of grief Kazan approached the two boulders
and thrust his head between them. Gray Wolf was there, crying to herself
in that terrible sobbing way. He went in, and began to lick her bleeding
shoulders and head. All the rest of that night she whimpered with pain.