The daily Alaskan., 1922-04-04

She Shot Twice.
 wanted to believe that her pistol ire
 would frighten the animal from her trail. She knew. under ordinary con ditiOns. that it would. If he still fol-
 lowed. it could mean but one thing tl,nt some unheard-of incident had oc- curred tn destroy his fear of men. It
 would mean that be had knowingly set upon her trail and was hunting her
 with all the uge-oId rcmorSelessnesS that Is the code of the mountains.
 For little while all was silence. I Then out of the hush the thiCtets sud- denly crashed and shook on the oppo- site side of the trail. She fired hlind- 1 Iy inro rhe thickpt. Then she caught
 herself with a sch. Rut two shells
 remained in her pistol, and they must he saved for the test.
 Whlsnprro0t the cougar. remember inr fho lessons ur hlS youth. turned from fhe trail when he had first henrd Srowhfrd's step He had CrOuched and Ip, her. pass. She was walking Into the wind: and as she was at the 1 closest point a message had blown back 10 him.
 The hair went straight on his sh0nl- ders and along his spine, His blood, running cold an instant before from l fear. made a great leap in his veins. A nlcture came in his dark mind: the I chase for a deer when the moon had
 spt fhp stir of a living thing that broke twigs in the thicketS and the Iran he had made There had been blood. that night-th" wi'dneSs and the | madness and rhc py1ltati0n of the Kill Of coursc there had been terror first, hut 'ha terror had soon departed and
 Jeff something lying warm and still
 in fine fnfrkpis. II was thp same game that walked his trail in front-gnme thut died easily and yet. in a vague WAY he did not understand, the 1 nohlcst game of n!l. lt was living 1 flesh. 10 tear with talon and fang.
 All his trnfnug. all the instincts lm-
 hUpd in him by thousand generations ] of cougars who knew this greatest 1 fear. were simply o!lrerated by the Suddrn violence of his hunting-mnd- ness He had lasted rliS blood once, md fl rould never he fU,gortrn. The ] flame lnanpd in his eyes. And then he began the stalk.
 e, i on lis game. does moi move quickly. It ] simply steals. as serpent steals
 through the grass. WhisnorfoOt stalk"d
 for a period of five minutes. 10 learn ! that the prey was farther away from ! him at every step.
 ! He rrOftcd forward until he came 1 close and again he sralked. Again he f round. afipr a few minutes of silent
 crpppfng through The thickets, that he
 had lost distance. Evidently this game did not feed slowly. like the
 deer. It was to he a chase, then. Again he trorted within one hundred l feet of the girl.
 Three times more he tried to stalk i before he finally gave lt up altogether, | This game was like the pOrcuDlne-
 simply to be chased down and taken. l And In rhe ease of all animals that
 hunt their game hy overriding It, tbcre was no longer any occasion for
 going silently. Tho thing to do was to i come close and spring from the trail
 behiuL
 Though the fear was mostly gone. ! the cougar retained enough of that
 caution that most wild animals ex- 1 hiblt when hunting a new game so
 that he didn't attempt to strike Snow- bird down at once. But as the chase
 went on. hls passion grew upon him. Ever he crcpt nearer. And St last he
 sprang full into the thickets beside her.
 At that instant she had shot for the 1 first time. Because the light had left
 his eyes before she could find aim,
 both shots had been clean misses. And
 terrible as the reports were, he was
 too engrOssed in the chase to be ! ll4EulCAlEi tN tlN bA LlNA V SNNA1Na' ---S
 was the cry the man-pack always
 made-these sudden, startling sounds
 in the silence. But he felt no pain.
 He crouched a moment, shivering. ! Then he bounded on again.
 i The third shot was a miss too: in
 fact there had been no chance for hit. A sound in the darkness Is as
 unreliable target as can possibly be imagined. And if didn't frighten him
 as much as the others. He waited crouchlng. 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 1t dies. It was a fear
 sound, and If there Is one emotion
 With which the wild beasts. are ac-