The mountain lion, or cougar, ordinarily not dangerous unless it gets its foe at an absolute disadvantage, becomes, during the mating season, a vindictive, savage brute, if separated from its mate. That this was now the case was evident. There was no room to doubt that the two green eyes glaring from the remote blackness of the cave were the optics of another "lion."
The young Motor Rangers were fairly trapped. Without weapons or any means of protecting themselves but their bare hands, they were in imminent peril of a nasty conclusion to their sudden encounter.
CHAPTER II.
BETWEEN TWO FIRES.
Snarling in very much the manner of an angry cat, the lion, which had appeared at the mouth of the cave, began to come forward more rapidly. At the same instant, as if by mutual consent, his mate started to advance from the rear of the cave. It was evident that if they did not wish to be seriously injured, perhaps killed, the Motor Rangers would have to act, and act quickly.
But what were they to do? Nat it was who solved the question. The floor of the cave was littered with boulders of various sizes, ranging from stones of a pound or so in weight, up to huge rocks beyond a boy's power to lift.
Stooping down swiftly Nat selected a stone a little larger than a baseball, and then throwing himself into a pitching posture, awaited the oncoming cougar, approaching from the cave mouth.
The boy had been the best pitcher the Santa Barbara Academy had ever produced, and his companions saw in a flash that he meant to exercise his skill now in a way of which he had little dreamed when on the diamond. His hand described an evolution in the air, far too quick to be followed by the eye. The next instant the stone left his grasp, and swished through the atmosphere.