“Well,” said Hugh, “we’ll know what it is in the morning, when it gets light.”
For the remainder of the night their rest was undisturbed. They rose early, and while breakfast was being cooked Hugh walked over to where the animal had been, and after looking about, came back and told the boys that the disturber of their rest had not been a mountain lion.
“I wish after we get breakfast you would show me how you know that, Hugh,” said Jack.
“I will,” said Hugh, “but I can tell you now. The place where it was lying is too small for a mountain lion. There is no mark anywhere on the snow of a long tail, such as a lion would have, and then out there I picked up this,” and he took from his pocket a little tuft of hair, gray, mixed with reddish. “Do you recognize that fur?” he said, as Jack took it in his hand and looked at it.
“No,” said Jack, “I don’t. But then you know I don’t know many of the mountain animals.”
“No,” said Hugh, “you don’t, and I don’t think Joe does, either. But unless I’m mightily mistaken that came from a lynx, one of those big animals like a bob-cat, only a good deal bigger, and gray instead of red. They’ve got black tips to their ears and a kind of whiskers around their necks, and they look awful fierce and savage, but it’s all looks. Though they seem to be so big, a man can kill one with a stick and not a very big stick, either.”
“Well,” said Jack, “let’s go over there as soon as we’ve eaten.”
After breakfast Hugh and Jack took their rifles and went over to the place where the animal had been sitting, and Hugh pointed out the animal’s tracks, which looked very large.
“Now, in this soft snow,” observed Hugh, “I can’t tell, and I don’t believe anybody else can, whether this is a lynx’s track or a mountain lion’s, but if it was a mountain lion’s, every little while as you followed it you’d see some place where the lion’s tail had made a mark in the snow. We don’t find anything of that sort here. Now, what do you say to following up these tracks, and seeing where the critter’s gone?”
“Let’s do it,” said Jack, eagerly.