Beadle's Dime Novels No. 96: Little Moccasin — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CATAMOUNT. AD was, lying stretched out on the lowest limb of a huge, thun- der-blasted oak, and instantly it came over him like a flash of lightning that the animal was a catamount, following his prey. His prey/+-and then: he recollected that he had en- tirely lost: sight of the two hunters. He now tried to get’ near the beast, without being. seen; and after some winding and turning in‘and out among the trees, he found. himself within a fair rifle-range. But where was the:prey ? He caught the flash of the creature’s large, yellow eyes; he saw a slight motion of the tail, and was just ready to draw a bead upon him, when, at a little distance ahead, he ‘saw two other shadows: crouching and ° stealing away into the darkness beyond. Were these our two hunters? Before lhe could: answer the question to himself, the creature he had been watching rose up, with a sort of moaning ery, which might well have been mistaken for that of a human being in distress—a mel- ancholy wail, such as often misleads the inexperienced, and -bounded off in: the direction of the two shadows—running and leaping from branch to branch, and up the tallest of the trees, like a shadow——noiseless, and oftentimes motionless for minutes together. A 9 And now, what was to be done? If he fired. off his gun as a signal, it would ‘betray him to the hunters, and might not. be understood by*them, after all; and he had his reasons fer wishing to be unsuspected: Still, he could hardly recon- cile it to his manhoed to leave them unapprised of. their dan- gerous proximity to the fiercest, and by far the most: danger- ous of our forest prowlers, the cougar—she being so treach- erous: and stealthy, and capable of suck astonishing leaps ; resembling the anaconda; indeed, in the suddemnéss and un- es ba of her naoWemaensa, ea she one are upon It: was evident: aula that the pmefttare was folowing some kind of prey; and yet she lingered)so:much,;:and ‘so frequently diverged from what seemed: to be the cotirse of {he hunters, that, our Old rates began to arte: that she. ‘had something else:in view. Just ashe :reached this continsions he cmsgit another glimpse of ithe hanters—yes, there could be no mistake now ; comlicbhooks.con