He next spread a few spruce and hemlock boughs on the ground between the two fires, selected a medium-sized chunk of wood for a pillow, donned his parka, drew its great hood over his head, and, with his rifle by his side, lay down on a much warmer and more comfortable couch than he had dared anticipate a couple of hours before.
Phil meant to keep awake so as to tend his fires, but instead of so doing he fell asleep within an hour, and slept soundly right through the night. When he at length awoke and sat up, he was chilled and stiff with cold, for the fires were very nearly extinguished by a fall of snow that had sifted down through the forest while he slept. As the poor lad discovered this he became filled with terror, for he knew that the back trail was obliterated, and that all hope of regaining camp by its means was cut off. Now he was indeed lost. As he gazed hopeless and bewildered about him he caught sight of something that he at first took to be a dog sitting only a few yards away, and regarding him hungrily. He spoke to it, and the animal started to sneak away. Then he saw that it was a wolf, and he hastened its movements with a rifle-shot.
As it was not yet light enough to commence his search for the river, or for some stream that would lead him to it, he began to throw wood on the fires, that he might at least get warm before starting. While thus engaged he was startled by a cry apparently in the voice of a child that rang dolefully through the silent forest. Again he heard it, plaintive and long-drawn, and this time nearer than before. It was so weird a cry to be heard in that place and at that time that he shuddered as he listened for its repetition. Its very humanness added to its terror. At its third utterance Phil seized his rifle, cocked it, and faced the direction of the sound, expecting in another moment to be confronted by the tawny form of a mountain-lion.
Phil had never met nor even seen a mountain-lion, but he had often heard that its cry sometimes imitates that of a child so closely as to deceive the most expert of hunters. He had heard, too, of its ferocity, its boldness in attacking human beings, and its terrible strength. In some respects it is even more to be feared than that monarch of the North American wilderness the grizzly bear, for the former, belonging to the cat family, is a famous tree-climber, which the latter is not.