Three times he crouched, preparing for a spring, and three times his tawny tail began that little up-and-down motion that is always the warning before his leap. But each time, as he waited to find his courage, the game had hurried on. Now she had her back to a tree and was holding the lantern high. It glinted on his eyes. And the fourth time she shot, and something hot and strange singed by close to his head. But it wasn't the pain of one quill from a porcupine, and it only increased his anger. He waited, crouching, and the girl started on. She was making other sounds now--queer, whimpering sounds not greatly different from the bleat that the fawn utters when it dies. It was a fear-sound, and if there is one emotion with which the wild beasts are acquainted, in all its phases, it is fear. She was afraid of him then, and that meant he need no longer be in the least afraid of her. His skin began to twitch all over with that terrible madness and passion of the flesh-hunters. This game was like the deer, and the thing to do was lie in wait. There was only one trail. He was simply following his instincts, no conscious intelligence, when he made a long circle about her and turned back to the trail two hundred yards in front. He wasn't afraid of losing her in the darkness. She was neither fleet like the deer nor courageous like Woof, the bear. He had only to wait and leap from the darkness when she passed. And because this was his own way of hunting, because the experiences of a thousand generations of cougars had taught him that it was the safest way, that even an elk may be downed by a surprise leap from ambush, the last of his fear went out of him. The step drew nearer, and he knew he would not again be afraid to give his stroke. * * * * * When Dan Failing, riding like mad over the mountain trail, heard the third shot from Snowbird's pistol, he felt that one of the debts he owed had come due at last. He seemed to know, as the darkness pressed around him, that he was to be tried in the fire. And the horse staggered beneath him as he tried to hasten. He showed no mercy to his mount. Horseflesh isn't made for carrying a heavy man over such a trail as this, and she was red-nostriled and lathered before half a mile had been covered. He made her leap up the rocks, and on the fairly level stretches he loosed the reins and lashed her into a gallop. Only a mountain horse could have stood that test. To Dan's eyes, the darkness was absolute; yet she kept straight to the trail. He made no attempt to guide her. She bounded over logs that he couldn't see, and followed turn after turn in the trail without ever a misstep.