It was only for a moment.  The big lynx on my side of the log was in a fighting temper; he snarled continuously.  Another sprang over the log and crouched beside him, facing me.  Then began a curious scene, of which I could not wait to see the end.  The two lynxes hitched nearer and nearer to where I stood motionless, watching.  They would creep forward a step or two, then crouch in the snow, like a cat warming her feet, and stare at me unblinkingly for a few moments.  Then another hitch or two, which brought them nearer, and another stare.  I could not look at one steadily, to make him waver; for the moment my eyes were upon him the others hitched closer; and already two more lynxes were coming over the log.  I had to draw the curtain hastily with a bullet between the yellow eyes of the biggest lynx, and a second straight into the chest of his fellow-starer, just as he wriggled down into the snow for a spring.  The others had leaped away snarling as the first heavy report rolled through the woods.

Another time, in the same region, a solitary lynx made me uncomfortable for half an afternoon.  It was Sunday, and I had gone for a snowshoe tramp, leaving my rifle behind me.  On the way back to camp I stopped for a caribou head and skin, which I had cached on the edge of a barren the morning before.  The weather had changed; a bitter cold wind blew after me as I turned toward camp.  I carried the head with its branching antlers on my shoulder; the skin hung down, to keep my back warm, its edges trailing in the snow.

Gradually I became convinced that something was following me; but I turned several times without seeing anything.  “It is only a fisher,” I thought, and kept on steadily, instead of going back to examine my trail; for I was hoping for a glimpse of the cunning creature whose trail you find so often running side by side with your own, and who follows you if you have any trace of game about you, hour after hour through the wilderness, without ever showing himself in the light.  Then I whirled suddenly, obeying an impulse; and there was Upweekis, a big, savage-looking fellow, just gliding up on my trail in plain sight, following the broad snowshoe track and the scent of the fresh caribou skin without difficulty, poor trailer though he be.

He stopped and sat down on his feet, as a lucivee generally does when you surprise him, and stared at me steadily.  When I went on again I knew that he was after me, though he had disappeared from the trail.

Then began a double-quick of four miles, the object being to reach camp before night should fall and give the lucivee the advantage.  It was already late enough to make one a bit uneasy.  He knew that I was hurrying he grew bolder, showing himself openly on the trail behind me.  I turned into an old swamping road, which gave me a bit of open before and behind.  Then I saw him occasionally on either side, or crouching half hid until I passed.  Clearly he was waiting for night; but to this day I am not sure whether it was the man or the caribou skin upon which he had set his heart.  The scent of flesh and blood was in his nose, and he was too hungry to control himself much longer.