. . . So this was the wall of the waters.
No man dare interpret it to any other man; but Skag found perfect awe.
Then he grew very quiet—his faculties alert as never before.
When he noticed the landscape again, the bobbing packs were gone. Slender spotted things in pairs and alone, were leopards—leaping long and low. A great dark creature, going like the wind, was a black panther.
Then he saw, right before him, the unthinkable. Majesty in miniature. A perfect East Indian musk buck—the most beautiful of living things. The wee fellow came on, leaping to the utmost of his strength; his nostrils wide, his lips apart, his eyes immense. He swayed a little, wavered and fell.
Skag ran and leaned over him—the little heart was driving out the little life. It seemed a pity out of all proportion. . . . He held the tiny breathless thing tenderly, as if it were a dead child. . . . So he laid it down reluctantly, at last; and straightened—to see a hunting cheetah coming toward him, not far away.
He glanced down, Nels was not there. He looked all about, Nels was not in sight. Then the reserves in Skag's nature came up. All his training flashed across his brain. Every nerve, every muscle in his body, was instantly adjusted to emergency. There was no failure in co-ordination.
He stood quietly watching the cheetah. It appeared not to have seen him. If it kept on, it would pass about seventy feet away. But Skag knew it would not keep on. With his mind he might think it would, but something in him knew it would not.
He remembered Carlin; no, he must not think of her now. He remembered that Nels was gone; no, he must not think of that either. All the weapons he had were in his heart, in his head. He set himself in order, ready. Recalling, while he waited, with what joy he had been ready to face the tiger that coughed near the monkey glen, to stand between Carlin and it—he was aware that now he faced a hunting cheetah as much for her.
The cheetah stopped, and turning toward him direct, laid itself along the ground so tight he could see only a line of colour among the grasses. There it seemed to stay.
When a man deals with a cat, to allay fear or to establish any common ground of sympathy, he ought to see its eyes. While realising this fact, Skag heard a piercing cat-scream, some distance back of him. He had not heard sounds from any of the animals before. . . . He found himself calculating whether the monsoon or night or the cheetah, would reach him first.