ALONG THE TRAIL.
When they left the main body of the party behind, Ralph, Harry Ware,
and young Simmons had kicked their ponies into a brisk “lope,” which
speedily carried them some distance ahead. As they rode along, they
gazed admiringly about them at the beauties of the rugged trail. The
rough way soon left the tunnel-like formation of spruce and tamarack,
and emerged on a muskeg, or patch of swampy ground, where rank, green
reeds and flowers of gorgeous red, yellow and blue grew in the wetter
places.
As they cantered into the midst of this pretty bit of scenery, a
striped animal sprang from behind a patch of brush with a snort, and
dashed off into the timber on the hillside beyond.
With a whoop and yell the boys, headed by Ralph, were after it.
“A wild cat!” shouted Ralph. “After him, boys!”
Their lively little ponies appeared quite to enter into the spirit of
the chase. At any rate, they needed no urging, but darted off as nimbly
as mountain goats among the trees. The gray and reddish form of the
wild cat was speedily lost sight of; but Ralph, who had slipped his
rifle from its holster, still kept on under the shadows of the forest,
followed by the others.
Suddenly he thought he saw an elusive form slipping among the timbers
ahead of him. Flinging the reins of his pony over the creature’s head,
in Western fashion, he dismounted. Hardware and Persimmons followed his
example. The eyes of all three boys were shining with the excitement of
this, their first adventure in the Canadian wilds.
“Cantering cayuses, boys, but we’ll have a fine skin to take home
before we’ve been on the trail ten minutes!” exclaimed Persimmons under
his breath, as they crept along behind Ralph.
“Don’t count your skins before you get ’em,” was Hardware’s advice.
At this moment there was a sudden commotion among the ponies. They
snorted and sniffed as if in terror of something, and Ralph rightly
guessed that they had just scented the wild cat.
“You fellows go back and quiet ’em; I’ll keep on,” he said.
Dearly as his two companions would have liked to continue on the trail
of the wild cat, there was nothing for them to do but to obey; for if
the ponies stampeded they knew that Mountain Jim would have something
to say that might not sound pleasant.
“Be careful now, Ralph,” warned Hardware, as their comrade kept on
alone. “Wild cats are pretty ugly customers sometimes.”
But Ralph did not reply. With a grim look on his face and with his
rifle clutched tightly, he slipped from trunk to trunk, his feet hardly
making any noise on the soft woodland carpet of pine needles.
Suddenly, from a patch of brush right ahead of him, came a sort of
yelping cry, not unlike that of a dog in pain or excitement.
“What on earth is up now?” he wondered to himself, coming to a halt and
searching the scene in front of him with eager eyes.
Then came sounds of a furious commotion. The brush was agitated and
there were noises as if two animals were in mortal combat in front of
him. But still he could see nothing. All at once came distinctly the
crunching of bones.
“It’s that wild cat and she’s made a kill of some sort, a rabbit
probably,” mused Ralph. “Well, I’ll catch her red-handed and revenge
poor Molly Cottontail.”
He cautiously tiptoed forward, making as little noise as possible.
He was well aware that a cornered wild cat can make a formidable
opponent, and he did not mean to risk wounding the animal slightly and
infuriating it. He was raising his rifle with a view to having it ready
the instant he should sight the savage wood’s creature, when he stepped
on a dead branch.
It emitted a sharp crack, almost like a pistol shot, and Ralph bit his
lip with vexation.
“That cat’s going to run now, taking its prey along, and I’ll not get
within a mile of it,” was his thought.
But no such thing happened. Instead, from the bushes, there came an
angry, snarling growl as the crunching of bones abruptly ceased.
Ralph’s heart began to beat a little quicker. It appeared that the cat,
far from fleeing, was going to show fight. But Ralph, after his first
surprise, did not worry: He knew his automatic would be more than a
match for the wild cat if it came down to a fight.
With this thought in his mind he pressed boldly forward, parting the
bushes as he went. He had not advanced more than a few yards when he
came upon a curious sight. A lithe, tawny creature of reddish color,
with oddly tufted ears, was crouched over the dead and torn body of a
rabbit. It had been savagely rending the smaller animal, and as Ralph
took all this in he realized, too, another fact. It was no wild cat
that he had disturbed, but another and a far more formidable animal.
“Great juniper! A Canadian lynx, and a whumper, too!” gasped the boy to
himself as he gazed at the creature which was almost as large as a good
sized dog.
For a moment the realization that he was face to face with an animal
that some hunters have described as being more formidable than a
mountain lion, made Ralph pause, while his heart thumped in lively
fashion. The great yellow eyes of the lynx, whose tufted ears lay flat
against its head, regarded him with blazing hatred. Its teeth were
bared under its reddened fangs, and Ralph saw that it was ready to
spring at him. It was only waiting to measure its distance accurately.
“I’ll give her all I’ve got in the gun,” thought Ralph, bringing the
weapon to bear; “my only chance is to finish her quick.”
His finger pressed the trigger, but, to his amazement, no report
followed.
“Great guns! The mechanism has stuck and I’ve not got an instant to
fuss with it,” was the thought that flashed through his mind as the
rifle failed to go off.
He had no time for more. With a growl and snarl the tawny body was
launched into the air, as if propelled toward him by chilled steel
springs. Ralph gave a hasty, almost involuntary step backward. His foot
caught in an out-cropping root and the next instant he measured his
length on the ground.
As he fell he was conscious of a flash passing before his face and
caught a glimpse of two yellow eyes blazing with deadly hate and anger.
The next instant there was a crash in the brush just beyond where he
lay, and the boy realized that his fall had been the luckiest thing in
the world for him. The lynx had overleaped him; but he knew that the
respite would not last the fraction of a minute. He was in as great
peril as before unless he acted and that quickly.