About a third of the way back as liz came stumbling along, following the stream as well as he could and probably thinking about the tales he could tell based on that beautiful catch, he suddenly heard the peculiar cry resembling the high-pitched scream of a frightened child or woman, unmistakably a mountain lion.
Jim never could clearly tell us how his state of mind changed from a kind of mental shudder not filled with any personal alarm to the panic which finally seized him. Because no sooner would he shake of his fear and get back to his thoughts of the fish than he would hear that startled. scream again and always it was nearer. Not only nearer but on_ different sides. Sometimes it would come from behind, sometimes from ahead anid each time the scream would. die away into a lowering wail. Jack had not carried hig.38 as me usually did because it bothered him some to have it in his pocket while he was fishing and he had wanted the afternoon's pleasure to be unalloyed. Gradually the certainty came over him that he was being stalked and he was almost maddened into breaking into a run. How-soul. Besides, we had plenty of game. It was a rich country. We used to love the taste of the grouse, They were the big, lazy fowls called the ''fool-grouse'"' and we used to see who could invent the most novel way of getting them. Dick took the prize by making a noose out of a shoestring and placing it on a branch of a tree. Then he sat down behind the tree and, sure enough, along came a grouse and stuck his head in the noose.
We finally came back to civilization, brown and strong and happy and with abiding affection for one another nourished by those days of companionship in the open air and by our common share in the work and play of the camp.
Of course, the biggest thing to me was the drawing out of the sweetness of those closing days with Ann because.it.was at the end of this trip that we were to leave one another and we knew that we were painting"our last perfect, picture together. And s0 it came to an end-that year together, wandered in high glee and some times hand in hand, and never with anger or reproaches and only a little way in misunderstanding, and always more fond and loyal and trusting, gypsying: city, and in the thickest of the boat traffic, a querulous scream from the whistle is followed by the splash of the tow-rope, and the launch glides away to muzzle against a tumble-down wharf until the evening start doors a three-pronged fork had been roughly painted, and I think that the meaning of that' is that the pomee had been placed under the Special protection of one of the great "Poussa's"' servants, a gentle-back to Shanghai shall call the crew/man who may be seen in any Bud-from opium, melon seeds, and; diiist temple, armed with a tru-large-voiced small talk to duty once culent expression and a trident. again. After the exercise of a great Nine a.m. found us making a long deal of patience and the expenditure} and short leg of it to the south of of a great many words and a few!
See Dun Ding, the extreme point of dollars we strike a bargain with the which is covered with p'aillou, or proprietors of a very small launch memorial arches, and very amall for a pluck out to open water, and red joss houses. To the south of us 10 a.m. sees the Kelpie once more in tow. Within half an hour a small! lay @ small well-wooded island, which we christened Christmas Is-hill—most welcome sight after the! land, from a fancied resemblance to dead level of the country round: the place of that name in the Gulf Shanghai!—is passed, and for the! next four hours we thread a narrow, of Carpentaria, while mirages of junks entering the lake from the channel between reed beds, until the city of Huchow hung over the open waters of the lake lie before us. southern horizon. Whether it was Here the launch, having done her the striking of six bells or the subse-duty, drops the tow-rope and inconquent muster of all hands aft for minently runs hard ashore, while the grog oh! I shall never know, The Kelpie, with the fickleness of her sex, leaves her consort in distress fact, remains that the wind suddenly vanished, and until well after tiffin and poles off into deeper water and. time we lay rolling, with slatting out of range of the cloud of ensuing bad language. sails. Even an Irishman's gale must end some day. A stiff N.N.E.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.