"He stole my turkey!"
"Tom, come here," ordered Dale, sharply. The cougar glided round rather sheepishly. "Now lie down an' behave."
Tom crouched on all-fours, his head resting on his paws, with his beautiful tawny eyes, light and piercing, fixed upon the hunter.
"Don't grab," said Dale, holding out a piece of turkey. Whereupon Tom took it less voraciously.
As it happened, the little bear cub saw this transaction, and he plainly indicated his opinion of the preference shown to Tom.
"Oh, the dear!" exclaimed Bo. "He means it's not fair.... Come, Bud--come on."
But Bud would not approach the group until called by Dale. Then he scrambled to them with every manifestation of delight. Bo almost forgot her own needs in feeding him and getting acquainted with him. Tom plainly showed his jealousy of Bud, and Bud likewise showed his fear of the great cat.
Helen could not believe the evidence of her eyes--that she was in the woods calmly and hungrily partaking of sweet, wild-flavored meat--that a full-grown mountain lion lay on one side of her and a baby brown bear sat on the other--that a strange hunter, a man of the forest, there in his lonely and isolated fastness, appealed to the romance in her and interested her as no one else she had ever met.
When the wonderful meal was at last finished Bo enticed the bear cub around to the camp of the girls, and there soon became great comrades with him. Helen, watching Bo play, was inclined to envy her. No matter where Bo was placed, she always got something out of it. She adapted herself. She, who could have a good time with almost any one or anything, would find the hours sweet and fleeting in this beautiful park of wild wonders.
But merely objective actions--merely physical movements, had never yet contented Helen. She could run and climb and ride and play with hearty and healthy abandon, but those things would not suffice long for her, and her mind needed food. Helen was a thinker. One reason she had desired to make her home in the West was that by taking up a life of the open, of action, she might think and dream and brood less. And here she was in the wild West, after the three most strenuously active days of her career, and still the same old giant revolved her mind and turned it upon herself and upon all she saw.
"What can I do?" she asked Bo, almost helplessly.
"Why, rest, you silly!" retorted Bo. "You walk like an old, crippled woman with only one leg."