After such an experience, it was impossible that sleep should return to the eyes of the lad.  He resumed his old perch, but only because it was the most comfortable.  Had he believed that there was a possibility of slumber, he would have fought it off, but there was not.

“I’ll wait here till morning,” he said to himself.  “It must be close at hand; and then, maybe, they will go away.”

He looked longingly for some sign of the breaking of day, but the moonlight, for a long time, was unrelieved by the rose-flush of the morning.

CHAPTER XXII LOST

Following the escape of their human victim, the wolves had maintained a frightful and most discordant howling, as if angered beyond expression at the style in which they had been baffled of their prey.

The lad sat listening to this, when suddenly it ceased.  Silence from each beast came as completely and simultaneously as if they were members of an orchestra subject to the wand of such an enchanter as Theodore Thomas.  What could it be?

For the space ot two or three minutes the silence remained as profound as that of the tomb, and then there came a rush and patter, made by the wolves as they fled pell-mell.

At first sight this seemed a reason for congratulation in getting rid of such unwelcome company; but Fred saw in it more cause for alarm.  Very evidently the creatures would not have left the spot in such a hurry unless they were frightened away by some wild animal more to be dreaded than themselves.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to use my rifle,” he thought, as he moved softly downward until he reached a point from which he could see anything that passed beneath.  “It’s pretty rough to have to fire a fellow’s last shot, when he’s likely to starve to death for it; but a beast that can scare away a pack of wolves is likely to be one that will take a well-aimed bullet to stop—–­”

This train of thought was abruptly checked by a sight which almost paralyzed him.  He could dimly discern the ground beneath, and he was watching and listening when a large figure came to view, and halted directly beneath him, where the first wolf had sat upon his haunches and looked so longingly upward.

No noise could be heard and it seemed to move like a phantom; but, even in the gloom, the peculiar swinging motion of the body showed prodigious strength and activity.  There could be no doubt, either, that the animal was a climber, and therefore more to be feared than a thousand wolves.

Fred had gained quite a knowledge of the animals of the country on his way across the plains, and in the indistinct view obtained he made up his mind that this was that most dangerous of wild beasts in the Southwest, the American cougar.  If such were the case, the lad’s only defense lay in the single charge of his rifle.  The cougar could leap among the limbs as easily as a cat bounds from the floor into the chair.