The little bunch kept a trailing along till they came to where the trail branched and the leader took the lower one, the little black colt and all the rest followed, all excepting the mouse colored yearling. The upper trail had drawed that one's interest, and nothing would do but what he had to investigate it for a ways. He kept his nose on the ground as he went and sniffed for clues of anything that might be of interest to him, he could see the bunch below and he figgered on cutting across to 'em soon as his curiosity was satisfied. Ahead of him a ways and above the trail was a big granite boulder a good ten feet high. A scrub mahogany had found root in a crack of the big rock and was spreading its branches well over it and making a good shade. In that shade and mighty hard to notice, was an object, a long, flat, dark buckskin object, which looked a lot like part of the rock. It was stretched out full length and seemed like without life only maybe for the tip of its long, round tail which was jerking up and down. The round head raised an inch at the sound of hoofs on the rocky trail, the ears flattened and the yellow eyes turned jet black at the sight of Smoky, the mouse colored yearling. Smoky was coming right on the trail and would pass to within a couple of feet of the big rock that was the mountain lion's game hunting perch, many a deer he'd pounced onto and killed from that perch; and not far away from that spot was bones scattered around which showed where he'd drug his victims and et his fill. Wolves, cayotes, and other varmints had cleaned up what the big lion would leave and the result was white bones a shining to the sun. The lion had a big territory which he claimed as his, but in all that rough country there was no better place than the one he was now getting ready to spring from, he'd got meat from that spot when he failed at others, and the trail he overlooked was tracked with many hoofs, hoofs of all the kind that ranged up there,--it was a main trail to a main pass. Why Smoky's mother didn't take that trail can't be explained much; may be it was instinct that warned her, and then again she might of got a glimpse of the tall rock and past experience made her turn to the left, but anyway she and her young colt and the rest of the bunch was safe and had left Smoky till he was thru investigating and ready to catch up with 'em. Smoky kept on a coming and edging closer to the rock, he nosed every twig and stone along the trail till he got to within a few feet of the spot where the lion would spring. The lion wasn't a stretched out shadow no more. He still looked like part of the rock and fitted pretty well with the stump of the scrub mahogany, but he was in a position that sure tallied up with all what was about to happen. He was ready, and still as the rock he was on, and the quiver of his long tail was a plenty to show that his wiry frame and brain was sure together and intent on one thing.