that the Spirit was at home on his chosen mountain and was taking his ease there, having first thrown a coverlet of cloud over his couch so that he might not be seen by mortal eyes.
Yet the Raven spoke no word, did not slacken his pace. Fergus Gilyan, spare, wiry, endowed with sinews of steel, strode briskly close behind the tall Indian. But King George's Commissioner, puffing and blowing as the slope grew steeper, prayed silently for a halt, yet was too plucky to confess his plight.
It was already mid-afternoon. Sir Alexander's caravan had encamped in the foothills the evening before. After a long ride over the first rampart of the Blue Ridge, with but one halt by the high falls of the Whitewater, the Raven and his two companions had left their ponies at the foot of Unaka Kanoos and had at once begun the ascent.
Gilyan noted with silent approval the Raven's plans for the hunt. He knew that, unlike most pumas, Koe Ishto helped his mate kill meat for her little ones and kept watch over the cave which was their home. Evidently the Raven would waste no time seeking his quarry along the runways of the deer or in the bushy meadows where the whitetails grazed. Instead, he would go straight to the cave where the puma had his lair, the cave for which Gilyan had so often searched in vain. The white
