Free The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford Page B

behind some bulrushes for a while, then raised his tail so that it alone was in sight and twitched the end, enjoying the dog’s silent frustration. He turned and stole silently down to the lake shore, where presently his long slim body, crouched on a rock, was seen in the binoculars of one of the men.
    “Here, kitty, kitty!” called an uncertain voice, after a moment’s silence. Then “Puss, puss … here, puss!” it tried, in gruff embarrassment—ignored by the cat, who curled his pink tongue down to the water and drank slowly and deliberately. Two voices called now, with an undertone of laughing disbelief. He raised his head and looked directly at the two figures standing up, black against the sky.
    He heard their excited argument, and then, an intentional poseur, he shook each paw daintily in turn, stepped delicately down from the rocks, and vanished from the men’s sight. Behind him he hearda burst of incredulous laughter, and continued on his way, well satisfied.
    The cat went on through the early morning mists, still following the trail of the dogs; and here it could not have been very old, for he found a partly chewed rabbit-skin, and several other clues, near some rocks where they had evidently passed a night, and the scent was still quite sharp to his acute sense. They had cut across country at one point through several miles of deep spruce and cedar swamp, so that the going was, alternately, soft and dry and strewn with needles, then damp and spongy. It was a gloomy place, and the cat appeared uneasy, frequently glancing behind him as if he thought he were being followed. Several times he climbed a tree and crouched on a branch, watching and waiting. But whatever it was he scented or imagined showed equal cunning, and never appeared.
    But the cat remained wary and suspicious, and felt with every nerve in his body that something was following—something evil. He increased his pace, then saw with relief that the area of deep, gloomy bush was coming to an end: far ahead of him he could see patches of blue sky which meant more open country. An old fallen tree lay ahead of him on the deer trail he was following. He leaped onto the trunk to cross it, pausing for a brief second, then every hair on his back rose erect, for in that moment he heard quite distinctly and felt rather than saw the presence of the following animal—and it was notvery far behind him. Without further delay the cat leaped for the trunk of a birch tree, and clinging with his claws looked back along the path. Into view, moving with a velvet tread that equaled his own, came what appeared to be a large cat. But it was as different from the ordinary domestic cat as the Siamese himself was different.
    This one was almost twice as large, chunky and heavy, with a short bobtail and thick furry legs. The coat was a soft gray, overlaid with a few darker spots. The head differed only from an ordinary cat in that it was framed in a ruff of hair, and the ears rose into tufted points. It was a wild, cruel face that the Siamese saw, and he recognized instinctively a wanton killer—and one that could easily outclass him in strength, ferocity and speed. He scrambled as far up the young birch as he could go, and clung there, the slender trunk swaying under his weight. The lynx stopped in the center of the trail, one heavy paw lifted, gazing up with gleaming malicious eyes; the Siamese flattened his ears and spat venomously, then looked quickly around, measuring his distance for escape. With a light bound the lynx landed on top of the fallen tree trunk, and for another endless moment the two pairs of eyes tried to outstare one another, the Siamese making a low eerie hissing noise, lashing his tail from side to side. The lynx leaped for the birch, straddling it easily with powerful limbs; then, digging in the long claws, he started up the trunk towards the cat, who retreated as far as was possible, and waited, swaying perilously now.As the heavy weight came