The eyes stared into Richard’s long enough for Richard to experience a warm rush of blood to his cheeks. He was blushing. Some kind of atavistic response, apparently, to being so watched. But then the eyes blinked, and the cougar’s tiny head turned to one side, ears twitching in reaction to something unseen. Then it spun around, and the last Richard saw of it was its furry tail snapping like a whip, and the white pads of its feet as it ran away.