Here, if the read the signs right, the cat had suddenly crouched and begun to stalk. His shielded eyes strained against the blinding white, up and down the stream, searching for any further sign. But all such effort was defeated by the hard glare of the noon sun. Perhaps if he made his eyes like a quiet pool, in which any movement would be as a pebble dropping into glassy waters..... Movement. His eyes shifted to the source. Again. The branches of a leafless tree, no, the tree itself, moved under the weight of some large animal, disturbing the snow-layered pines around it. At the edge of the clearing, on the far side of the stream. A short distance in front of it the snow had been mangled and stained, as by a recent kill. He cut a swath straight towards it, risking much that the creature in the tree was his own, self-named Avatar, proud hunter of the frozen woodlands. He came to the stream, and lifting both his garments and the startled cub, waded across. The shaking of branches had not ceased, and now as he gained the far bank and set down the cub, a muffled growl was added to it. He froze, spear lifted. But the sound had been neither sudden, nor seemed in any way to correspond with his movements. And at last, his eyes describing the scene, he lowered his spear with a surge of pride and gratitude. It was his ally, the tiger, struggling to lift a large buck into the crotch of a trembling beech. 'Avatar!' The great cat gave a sudden snarl, and dropping its prey, loosed its hold on the tree and leapt down to face him. All done in an instant, and with such angry determination that the man-child's eyes went wide, and he took a step back in spite of himself. The tiger, too, felt a moment of confusion. For here was something not stamped into the racial memory of instinct. Kalus it knew, as the creature who fed and protected him at need. He felt an association to him, even a kind of closeness. But he was also the first creature to disturb him at his part-eaten kill, and those feelings were strong and immediate. Kalus seemed to understand this, because he stood silent and made no further move, staying the cub, who would have stepped freely to the meat her friend had provided. The tiger looked at the tree, then at the man. He vaguely recalled his mother, coming upon the scene of another tiger's kill, and the way it had first snarled, then yielded, allowing her to eat..... At last he solved the puzzle. Searching the forest behind him for any sign of danger, he moved away from the buck and remained standing, patient but alert, leaving the other to eat his fill.