Just then a cry which reverberated amongst the great pines, and seemed to fill the forest with horror, explained the mystery. It was the cry of the hungry mountain lion seeking his prey by night. Snap glanced at the pine to which his horse had been tied. Yes, thank goodness, his rifle was there! it had not been strapped to his saddle; and as the boy got hold of his weapon confidence returned to him. If only he could get clear of the forest on to the open prairie he had no fear of the cowardly, sneaking brute behind him. He tried to sing as he walked, to show his confidence and scare the beast with the sound of the human voice. But it was no good, he could not sing in that forest. Its awful silence rebuked him: the cold stars looked down, it seemed to him, in stony scorn, and his voice seemed so little and insignificant amongst all these mighty children of mother Nature. Now and again the ice upon some stream, or the frozen limbs of some great tree, cracked like a loud rifle-shot. All else was still, except now and again for the voice of the red beast sneaking behind the boy somewhere in the shadows, still following, still afraid to attack. The silence and lifelessness of a North American forest in winter is very impressive. The snow which covers the ground is lighter than swansdown, drier than sand. It falls unheard, it gives place to the foot without a sound. The birds are gone, or if not gone have hidden. The bear has made him a bed in some hollow tree or cave, and sleeps silently in the silent wood. The squirrel chatters no longer; he, too, has retired to his little granary in some hollow trunk. The rabbit and the weasel are still restlessly wandering about as usual, but both have changed their coats, and assumed a white covering to match the snows amongst which they live. Almost everything sleeps: trees in their robes of snow, the bear in his cave, the streams in their bonds of ice; even the winds are still. Nothing stirs. If you have ever made a long walk at night by yourself over some lonely road or moor you may know that feeling which grows upon you, that some one is following you, that you can hear other footsteps than your own behind you. If this state of mind occurs to those who walk alone in England, where silence is really unknown and solitude impossible, where there are no mysteries (and very few, alas! of the beauties) of nature left, you can imagine how anxiously Snap kept gazing into the forest round and behind him for the owner of that awful voice, about which there could be no mistake, which was not the mere creation of any fancy.