The words were hardly out of his mouth when the little animal jumped, trembled, started to run, and then looked piteously from side to side, as if uncertain which way to flee and from what peril. An instant more and the greyish-brown form of a lynx shot like lightning from the underbrush. It caught the young deer by the throat, dragged it down, tore it savagely, and began drinking its blood.
“Kill it! kill it!” panted Miranda, starting forward. But Dave’s hand checked her.
“Wait!” he said firmly. “The little critter’s dead; we can’t do it no good. Wait an’ we’ll git both the varmints. There’ll be a pair of ’em.”
Under ordinary circumstances, Miranda would have resented the idea of getting “both the varmints”; but just now she was savage with pity for the young deer, and she chose to remember vindictively that far-off day when Ganner had come to the clearing, and only the valour of Star, the brindled ox, had saved herself and Michael, the calf, from a cruel death. She obeyed Dave’s command, therefore, and waited.
But there was another who would not wait. The mother doe had heard her lost little one’s appeal. In wild haste, but noiseless on the deep carpet of the moss, she came leaping to the cry. She saw what Miranda and Dave saw. But she did not pause to calculate, or weigh the odds against her. With one bound she was out in the open. With the next she was upon the destroyer. The hungry lynx looked up just in time to avoid the fair impact of her descending hooves, which would have broken his back. As it was, he caught a glancing blow on the flank, which ripped his fine fur and hurled him several paces down the slope.
Before he could fully recover, the deer was upon him again; and Miranda, her eyes glowing, her cheeks scarlet with excitement and exultation, clutched her companion’s arm with such a grip that her slim fingers hurt him deliciously. The lynx, alarmed and furious, twisted himself over and fixed both claws and teeth in his adversary’s leg, just below the shoulder. Fierce and strong as he was, he was nevertheless getting badly punished, when his mate appeared bounding down the slope, and with a sharp snarl sprang upon the doe’s neck, bearing her to her knees.
“Shoot! shoot!” cried Miranda, springing away from Dave’s side to give him room. But his rifle was at his shoulder ere she spoke. With the word his shot rang out; and the second assailant dropped to the ground, kicking. Immediately Dave ran forward. The male lynx, disentangling himself, darted for cover; but just as he was disappearing, Dave gave him the second barrel, at short range, and the bullet caught him obliquely across the hind quarters, breaking his spine. Dave was noted as the best shot in all that region; but the marksmanship which he had just displayed was lost on Miranda. She took it for granted that to shoot was to hit, and to hit was to kill, as a matter of course. Dave’s first shot had killed. The animal was already motionless. But the writhings of the other lynx, prone in the bush, tore her heart.
“Oh, how it’s suffering! Kill it, quick!” she panted. Dave ran up, swung his rifle in a short grip, and struck the beast a settling blow at the base of the skull. The deer, meanwhile, limping and bleeding, but not seriously the worse for her dreadful encounter, hobbled back to where the body of her young lay stretched upon the moss. She sniffed at it for a moment with her delicate nose, satisfied herself that it was quite dead, then moved off slowly into the shadows.
Miranda went to each of the three slain animals in turn, and looked at them thoughtfully, while Dave waited in silence, uncertain what to do next. He felt that it behooved him to step warily while Miranda was wrestling with emotions. At last she said, with a sob in her voice, and her eyes very bright and large,—
“Come, let’s get away from this horrid place!”