“I don't mean people or things. I mean my pets.”
“Ah! I had forgotten.... Milt, where are they?”
“Gone back to the wild,” he said. “They had to live in my absence. An' I've been away long.”
Just then the brooding silence, with its soft murmur of falling water and faint sigh of wind in the pines, was broken by a piercing scream, high, quivering, like that of a woman in exquisite agony.
“That's Tom!” exclaimed Dale.
“Oh—I was so—so frightened!” whispered Helen.
Bo came running, with Las Vegas at her heels.
“Milt, that was your tame cougar,” cried Bo, excitedly. “Oh, I'll never forget him! I'll hear those cries in my dreams!”
“Yes, it was Tom,” said Dale, thoughtfully. “But I never heard him cry just like that.”
“Oh, call him in!”