"I dropped to my knee to steady my aim, and as her tawny, lithe body came into view, I fired. It was a shot that I wouldn't have missed once in a hundred times under ordinary circumstances. But this was the hundredth time.
"As my weapon was discharged, the lioness emitted a great roar, gave a whisk of her tail and dashed off into the forest. I knew that I had not harmed her. It was then that I began to think that the creature bore a charmed life. It certainly appeared so.
"I was the crack shot of that part of the country and yet I had gone wide of a target that a ten-year-old boy could not well have missed. But as I picked up the cubs and resumed my journey, I thought to myself, with grim satisfaction, that it would not be long before I had another chance at the beast, and that next time I promised myself that my bullet would find its mark.
"Well, it wasn't long before what I expected and hoped for came true. I was out in the back of my shack splitting wood two days later, when through the light green of the trees that grew close up, I thought I saw the flash of a swiftly-moving, tawny body.
"I chuckled to myself. 'So you have come at last, eh? That is good. Now you and I will try conclusions together.'
"Such was the thought that ran through my mind as I made all haste into the hut for my rifle. As the light-colored mass moved again among the trees, I leveled my weapon and fired. But again I missed!
"There was a swift dash, more like the passage of a streak of light than the moving of a living thing, and then I knew that the puma had fooled me once more. But I also knew that she would come back. The mother-love that lives in all animals would bring her. I was to pay dearly for playing upon this noble instinct. I have never tampered with it since. A creature with young is sacred to me. But I had not learned my lesson then, and I planned to use the puma's motherly instinct to trap her to her destruction.
"That evening she was back. I heard her crying her soft, mother cry among the trees. From inside the cabin, in a sort of rough cage I had contrived for them, the cubs answered her with little sharp barking cries.
"But strong as were the ties that bound her to the cubs, the mother mountain lion came no closer. She was not visible to me. I crouched, rifle in hand, waiting for one chance at her; but it didn't come. She kept far up the mountain side, from time to time giving her cry. It was like the cry of that wild-cat we heard to-night. It was a sound that I have come to dread. Sometimes in dreams I hear it and then I waken and cry out. Lafe can tell you.
"I brought the cub's cage outside the hut. I thought that maybe that would bring her within range of my rifle. But the animal seemed to know I was laying a pitfall for her, for she did not approach any closer; but all that night her cries shook the forest.