that they took to each
other. Perhaps he wasn't really quite as heroic as he appeared, but
that's not uncommon among other lovers besides those belonging to the
lynx tribe, and what difference did it make, anyhow, as long as she
didn't know it?

That winter was a hard one. The cold was intense, the snow was very
deep, and the storms came often. Spruce hens and partridges were scarce,
even rabbits were hard to find, and sometimes it seemed to the two
lynxes as if they were the only animals left in the woods. Except the
deer. There were always plenty of deer down in the cedar swamp, and
their tracks were as plain as a lumberman's logging road. But although
the lynxes sometimes killed and ate young fawns in the summertime, they
seldom tasted venison in the winter. It was well for them that they had
each other, for when one failed in the hunt the other sometimes
succeeded, yet I cannot help thinking that the old male, especially,
might perhaps have been of more use to his mate if he had not confined
his hunting so entirely to the smaller animals. More than once he sat on
a branch of a tree and watched a buck or doe go by, and his claws
twitched and his eyes blazed, and he fairly trembled with eagerness and
excitement as he saw the big gray creature pass, all unconscious,
beneath his perch. Splendidly armed as he was, it would seem as though
he must have succeeded if only he had jumped and risked a tussle. But he
never tried it. I suppose he was afraid. And yet--such were the
contradictions of his nature--one dark night he trotted half a mile
after a shanty-boy who was going home with a haunch of venison over his
shoulder, and was just gathering himself for a spring, intending to leap
on him from behind, when another man appeared. Two against one was not
fair, he thought, and he gave it up and beat a retreat without either of
them seeing him. They found his footprints the next morning in their
snow-shoe tracks, and wondered how far behind them he had been. I don't
know whether it was a vein of real courage that nerved him up to doing
such a foolhardy thing as to follow a man with the intention of
attacking him, or whether it was simply a case of recklessness. The
probability is, however, that he was hungrier than usual, and that the
smell of the warm blood made him forget everything else. Anyhow, he had
a pretty close call, for the shanty-boy had a revolver in his pocket.

Aside from any question of heroism, I am afraid th