shot six times at it.

"By George! Come here," called my companion. "How's this for quick
work? It's a yearling doe."

In another moment I leaned over a gray mass huddled at Jones feet. It
was a deer gasping and choking. I plainly heard the wheeze of blood
in its throat, and the sound, like a death-rattle, affected me
powerfully. Bending closer, I saw where one side of the neck, low
down, had been terribly lacerated.

"Waa-hoo!" pealed down the slope.

"That's Emett," cried Jones, answering the signal. "If you have
another shot put this doe out of agony."

But I had not a shot left, nor did either of us have a clasp knife.
We stood there while the doe gasped and quivered. The peculiar sound,
probably made by the intake of air through the laceration of the
throat, on the spur of the moment seemed pitifully human.

I felt that the struggle for life and death in any living thing was
a horrible spectacle. With great interest I had studied natural
selection, the variability of animals under different conditions of
struggling existence, the law whereby one animal struck down and
devoured another. But I had never seen and heard that law enacted on
such a scale; and suddenly I abhorred it.

Emett strode to us through the gathering darkness.

"What's up?" he asked quickly.

He carried my Remington in one hand and his Winchester in the other;
and he moved so assuredly and loomed up so big in the dusk that I
experienced a sudden little rush of feeling as to what his advent
might mean at a time of real peril.

[Illustration: JONES ABOUT TO LASSO A MOUNTAIN LION]

[Illustration: REMAINS OF A DEER KILLED BY LIONS]

"Emett, I've lived to see many things," replied Jones, "but this is
the first time I ever saw a lion jump a deer right under my nose!"

As Emett bent over to seize the long ears of the deer, I noticed the
gasping had ceased.

"Neck broken," he said, lifting the head. "Well, I'm danged. Must have
been an all-fired strong lion. He'll come back, you may be sure of
that. Let's skin out the quarters and hang the carcass up in a tree!"

We returned to camp in a half an hour, the richer for our walk by a
quantity of fresh venison. Upon being acquainted with our adventure,
Jim expressed himself rather more fairly than was his customary way.

"Shore that beats hell! I knowed there was a lion somewheres, because
Don wouldn't lie down. I'd like to get a pop at the brute."

I believed Jim's wish found an echo in