The Everlasting Whisper

At last she was where she could reach out and touch the swinging carcass. With King's keen-edged butcher knife she hacked and cut at the frozen meat, panting with every effort. The task seemed endless; the bear swung away from her; a branch broke under her foot and she almost fell; she was sobbing aloud brokenly before it was done, the tears rolling down her cheeks. But at last there was the thud of the falling meat; below her it lay on the snow crust. In wild haste she snatched her rifle; holding it in one hand, afraid to let it slip out of her grasp for a moment, casting a last fearful look in the direction whither the lion had gone, she began slipping down. And in another moment, with the precious burden caught up with the gun in her arms, she was running back up the ridge, her feet in King's trail. The home trail!

She looked behind her at every step, picturing the snarling cat springing out from every shadow, starting upward from every drift and snow-bank. But she clutched her meat tight and struggled on up the slope.

Her whole body was shaking; she closed her eyes, overcome with faintness. There was a faint wind stirring and it cut like a knife, probing through her garments where they were damp. She shivered and struggled on and on. She felt that she could run all night without stopping. She stumbled and fell and arose, panting and sobbing, and ran on. She no longer looked behind her: she had fallen when she did that. Again and again from far behind her came the clear, merciless scream of the mountain-lion. Time passed; half-hour or hour or two hours, she had little idea. Time itself was a nightmare of running, falling, rising, staggering, running again until the blood pounded in her temples, drummed in her ears. The cry came again, as near as before--nearer? Throughout the night as she struggled on she could always fancy the stealthy, silent feet following her, keeping time with her own. Cautious now, would its caution slowly subside as its hunger grew and as she always fled from it? The thought came to her that such a menace would follow one day after day; that it would wait and wait; that in the end it knew its time would come when sleep or exhaustion broke down its prey's guard. Then it would leap and strike.

Her rifle had grown a heart-breaking weight, until it seemed that it would drag her arms from their sockets to hold it up; the pack of meat on her back was like lead.