he had learned on that occasion that the rattler's quickness is as nothing compared with the quickness of the whitetail deer and that even the poisoned fangs of the king of serpents cannot avail against the whitetail's flint-edged hoofs.
That had been a great fight. This was to be a longer and a more spectacular one. Again, in his absorption in this lesser drama, Mayfield seemed to forget the drama of which he himself was the center, to forget the ruthless eyes watching from the ambush of the black oak trunk behind him. He sat in plain view on the pine stump, but the combatants were so intent upon their battle that neither saw him. Almost before he knew it the doe leaped to the attack. But all the big cats are marvelously quick, and the bay lynx is quick as light. When the doe's sharp hoofs came down the lynx was not there.
So swiftly that Mayfield's eyes could not follow the motion, the lithe, tawny cat had leaped three feet to the right. Another short leap would have carried him into the myrtle thicket, but, instead, he bounded back into the open. Probably he had not grasped the significance of what was happening. Occasionally some big buck had displayed a certain arrogance towards him, but in general he had found the deer, especially the does, a timid folk. He did not know that a fawn lay hidden in the clump of
