acts the rabbits. Upweekis knows this, or is
perhaps attracted himself and comes also, and hides among the shadows.
But he never catches anything unless he blunders onto it. That is why
he wanders so much in winter and passes twenty rabbits before he
catches one. So when he knows that Moktaques is near, watching the
light, but remaining himself invisible, Upweekis crouches for a
spring; then he screeches fearfully. Moktaques hears it and is
startled, as anybody else would be, hearing such a cry near him. He
jumps in a fright and pays the penalty.

If the lynx is a big one, and very hungry, as he generally is in
winter, you may get some unpleasant impressions of him in another way
when you venture far from your fire. His eyes blaze out at you from
the darkness, just two big glowing spots, which are all you see, and
which disappear at your first motion. Then as you strain your eyes,
and watch and listen, you feel the coals upon you again from another
place; and there they are, under a bush on your left, creeping closer
and blazing deep red. They disappear suddenly as the lynx turns his
head, only to reappear and fascinate you from another point. So he
plays with you as if you were a great mouse, creeping closer all the
time, swishing his stub tail fiercely to lash himself up to the
courage point of springing. But his movements are so still and shadowy
that unless he follows you as you back away to the fire, and so comes
within the circle of light, the chances are that you will never see
him.

Indeed the chances are always that way, day or night, unless you turn
hunter and set a trap for him in the rabbit paths which he follows
nightly, and hang a bait over it to make him look up and forget his
steps. In summer he goes to the burned lands for the rabbits that
swarm in the thickets, and to rear his young in seclusion. You find
his tracks there all about, and the marks of his killing; but though
you watch and prowl all day and come home in the twilight, you will
learn little. He hears you and skulks away amid the lights and
shadows of the hillside, and so hides himself--in plain sight,
sometimes, like a young partridge--that he manages to keep a clean
record in the notebook where you hoped to write down all about him.

In winter you cross his tracks, great round tracks that wander
everywhere through the big woods, and you think: Now I shall find him
surely. But though you follow for miles and learn much about him,
findin