Those who learned caution and still greater determination, these
were the hunters, the great cats who survived.
Coming to the crest of a long hill, he looked down upon a gentle valley,
at the center of which lay a clearing along both sides of a swirling
stream. Just at the edge of it on the far shore, beyond which the
forests rose once more to dominate, stood a tall buck and his troop,
three females and their half-grown young. Engaged in eating bark and
pawing through the snow for saplings, at that distance and with their
eyes they could not have seen him.
Immediately he crouched, and in his wordless way, formed a plan. The
wind blew from right to left, with the stream, and to cross it
silently..... He snaked out of sight among the trees, and began to
descend at an angle to his left. Coming to a place where the stream
bent towards him, he followed it a short way further, then quickly and
quietly waded across. He heard the buck sing out as he reached the
farther shore and scrambled up, and feared that his chance was lost.
But stubbornly he dove among the trees and made his swift, circling way
towards the spot.
>From ahead of him now came the sounds of conflict, a muted knocking and
scraping of antlers and the angry, conch-like cries of the bull.
Drawing hard upon the clearing he discovered the reason.
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