“Yes, that’s wonderful, Pourcette,” he said; “but that’s when the puma has things its own way. How is it when these come off?” He stroked the soft furs under his hand.
The man laughed, yet without a sound—the inward, stealthy laugh, as from a knowledge wicked in its very suggestiveness. His eyes ran from Lawless to Shon, and back again. He put his hand on his mouth, as though for silence, stole noiselessly over to the wall, took down his gun quietly, and turned round. Then he spoke softly:
“To kill the puma, you must watch—always watch. You will see his yellow eyes sometimes in a tree: you must be ready before he springs. You will hear his breath at night as you pretend to sleep, and you wait till you see his foot steal out of the shadow—then you have him. From a mountain wall you watch in the morning, and, when you see him, you follow, and follow, and do not rest till you have found him. You must never miss fire, for he has great strength and a mad tooth. But when you have got him, he is worth all. You cannot eat the grizzly—he is too thick and coarse; but the puma—well, you had him from the pot to-night. Was he not good?”
Lawless’s brows ran up in surprise. Shon spoke quickly:
“Heaven above!” he burst out. “Was it puma we had betune the teeth? And what’s puma but an almighty cat? Sure, though, it wint as tinder as pullets, for all that—but I wish you hadn’t tould us.”
The old man stood leaning on his gun, his chin on his hands, as they covered the muzzle, his eyes fixed on something in his memory, the vision of incidents he had lived or seen.
Lawless went over to the fire and relit his pipe. Shon followed him. They both watched Pourcette. “D’ye think he’s mad?” asked Shon in a whisper. Lawless shook his head: “Mad? No. But there’s more in this puma-hunting than appears. How long has he lived here, did he say?”
“Four years; and, durin’ that time, yours and mine are the only white faces he has seen, except one.”
“Except one. Well, whose was the one? That might be interesting. Maybe there’s a story in that.”
“Faith, Lawless, there’s a story worth the hearin’, I’m thinkin’, to every white man in this country. For the three years I was in the mounted police, I could count a story for all the days o’ the calendar—and not all o’ them would make you happy to hear.”