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Updated: May 5, 2025
A branch upon which I was leaning swayed or snapped, and the lucivee stopped as if struck, crouching lower and lower against the tree, his big yellow expressionless eyes glaring straight into mine. A moment only he stood the steady look; then his eyes wavered; he turned his head, leaped for the underbrush, and was gone.
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.
He was aware of neither sound nor motion, yet not many paces distant stood a tawny, gray-brown animal whose round, moon-like face, pale savage eyes and tufted ears proclaimed it to be a lynx, or, as it is more commonly known in the backwoods settlements, a lucivee.
I was uneasy, following the little deer path through the twilight stillness; and my uneasiness was not decreased when I found on a log, within fifty yards of the spot where the fawn first appeared, the signs of a big lucivee, with plenty of fawn's hair and fine-cracked bones to tell me what he had eaten for his midnight dinner.
As the porcupine passed, the lynx came cautiously forth from his concealment and padded after him, his curiosity still unsatisfied. Kagh had not gone far when some whim caused him to turn about as if to retrace his steps. The lucivee was close behind, but with a motion like the bounding of a rubber ball he quickly vacated the spot and again stood peering from behind a tree.
He knows well that he is not safe on land a moment after the snow falls; that some prowling lucivee or wolverine would find his tracks and follow him, and that his escape to water would be cut off by thick ice. So he plans a big claw-proof house with no entrance save a tunnel in the middle, which leads through the bank to the bottom of his artificial pond.
Save for the nervous twitching of his stubby tail, the lucivee stood as motionless as the trees about him. As the wind was blowing toward him, the Hermit felt sure that the lynx was not yet aware of his presence. He was glad of this, as it would give him an opportunity to study the beast.
The lynx, from the shadows of the trees, watched him hungrily, longing to attack the small, harmless-looking animal but afraid of the man. Day after day the lucivee watched for a time when the dog might follow the trail alone, but the Hermit did not permit Pal to wander off unaccompanied, and he was careful to arm himself on his infrequent trips into the forest.
The great woods were covered deep with their pure white mantle; not a fleck, not a track soiled its even whiteness; for the last soft flakes were lingering in the air, and fox and grouse and hare and lucivee were still keeping the storm truce, hidden deep in their coverts.
"But what," my thoughts went on, "had happened to you ere now, had a bear or lucivee lifted his head over the ridge? Next month, alas! the law will be off; then there will be hunters in these woods, some of whom leave their hearts, with their wives and children, behind them. You can't trust them, believe me, little chap. Your mother is right; you can't trust them." The night was coming swiftly.
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