the long, sinuous, muscular body; but they moved so rapidly that
before I could shoot they were gone from sight.

All the time he made no sound but a little rustle. In his final
concealment I saw nothing of him but his tail, that twitched and
twitched and twitched.

At last I caught the glint of his pale green eye and fired. There
came a snarl from behind the bush, and it was dashed to one side
and the other, while round head and bared teeth and tawny body came
crashing through. I pulled trigger again, and the report sounded
muffled, and the smoke for an instant obscured the beast. All was
white, when, like a breath, it passed, and I saw the rushing
catamount not ten feet from me.

I had not time to fire or crouch, but with ready legs hurled myself
to one side, and threw my left arm around the tree that grew at the
edge of the bank. With an awful dread I felt the ground giving way
beneath me.

I dropped my knife and caught the tree closer, when it, too, leaned
to fall. It hung for a moment over the steep slope, and I could not
save myself. The frost had not clamped the over-hang to the solid
ground. The last fall rains had cut it under; the first spring thaw
would have brought it down, had not my weight been thrown upon it.

With a twist the tree and I fell together. I clutched my revolver
desperately, despite the sickening fear of the fall, and in my
grasp it exploded in mid air. Then I fell, and although my body
struck easily in the snow-covered ravine, my right hand had been