the forest. Warm patches of sunlight, like gold,
brightened the ground; dark patches of sky, like ocean blue, gleamed
between the treetops. Hardly a rustle of wind in the fine-toothed green
branches disturbed the quiet. When I got fully out of sight of camp, I
started to run as if I were a wild Indian. My running had no aim; just
sheer mad joy of the grand old forest, the smell of pine, the wild
silence and beauty loosed the spirit in me so it had to run, and I ran
with it till the physical being failed.

While resting on a fragrant bed of pine needles, endeavoring to regain
control over a truant mind, trying to subdue the encroaching of the
natural man on the civilized man, I saw gray objects moving under the
trees. I lost them, then saw them, and presently so plainly that, with
delight on delight, I counted seventeen deer pass through an open arch
of dark green. Rising to my feet, I ran to get round a low mound. They
saw me and bounded away with prodigiously long leaps. Bringing their
forefeet together, stiff-legged under them, they bounced high, like
rubber balls, yet they were graceful.

The forest was so open that I could watch them for a long way; and as I
circled with my gaze, a glimpse of something white arrested my
attention. A light, grayish animal appeared to be tearing at an old
stump. Upon nearer view, I recognized a wolf, and he scented or sighted
me at the same moment, and loped off into the shadows of the trees.
Approaching the spot where I had marked him I found he had been feeding
from the carcass of a horse. The remains had been only partly eaten,
and were of an animal of the mustang build that had evidently been
recently killed. Frightful lacerations under the throat showed where a
lion had taken fatal hold. Deep furrows in the ground proved how the
mustang had sunk his hoofs, reared and shaken himself. I traced roughly
defined tracks fifty paces to the lee of a little bank, from which I
concluded the lion had sprung.

I gave free rein to my imagination and saw the forest dark, silent,
peopled by none but its savage denizens, The lion crept like a shadow,
crouched noiselessly down, then leaped on his sleeping or browsing
prey. The lonely night stillness split to a frantic snort and scream of
terror, and the stricken mustang with his mortal enemy upon his back,
dashed off with fierce, wild love of life. As he went he felt his foe
crawl toward his neck on claws of fire; he saw the tawny body and the