harmless. His fierce brain knew it would be an easy kill, and his ravening jaws slavered at the realization that after one rending attack he could gorge himself—on the tender flesh of a woman.

[14]

Baffled, maddened, he screeched once more. Then he became silent. He had found something promising: not a direct line of descent, but a narrow shelf dipping diagonally down the face of the cliff. Along this he proceeded with swift, sure stealth.

Then, down in the density behind him, a light shot out from between two towering bowlders. A clean, brilliant beam it was—the ray of a carbide camp-lamp. Its white sheen played up, down, right, left; and as it moved, the rock-masses and the trees and brush round about stood forth, then vanished again into the gloom. But it did not advance. Between those two colossal blocks it stayed, peering like a dazzling eye.

All at once it jumped. From the chaos of chunks between silent cat and silent light, a voice had cried out.

“Help! Oh—help!”

It was a high, clear, penetrating call, with an under-note of terror and pain.

Two voices answered: one, a ferine snarl from the merciless cat-creature beyond; the other, a quick response in the tones of a man.

“Right here! Where are you?”

[15]“Here into the—the rocks! Oh, hurry up, before that critter gits to me!”

[15]

“Coming!”

The glaring white eye moved forward in haste. Behind it, boots scraped and bumped on rock. It rose in a steep slant, slid suddenly down, accompanied by more scraping of boot-heels; disappeared between two blocks leaning together; emerged beyond, ascended again, wavering erratically with the strain of climbing a treacherous slope; halted at the peak of another bowlder and rapidly searched the surroundings.

“Can’t see you!” the man panted. “Speak up!”

“Hold stiddy a minute!” implored the other voice. “I’m a-comin’—up this rock—if I don’t slip. Oh!” The last was a choked moan.

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