The deer were everywhere. There was scarcely a moment when she could not look to right or left and see a grazing herd. Crossing the head of a long, narrow savannah walled in by dense growths of cane, she tried to count the wild animals feeding there. In the foreground were nineteen white-tails, beyond them a drove of fifteen wild black cattle, and beyond these again five elk, while farther away there were still other herds of deer, too closely bunched to be counted with certainty. But the number of these was as nothing compared with the birds; tall cranes, some white with black-tipped wings, some gray with crimson patches on their heads; egrets pure white from head to drooping tail, walking in hundreds along the edges of the shallow pools; a great army of white ibis whose curved orange-red bills glowed in the sun.
She was watching the tall, stately cranes when a sudden movement among the grazing deer nearer at hand fixed her attention. She saw their small heads suddenly lift, saw some of them go bounding away, their tails held high, while others still stood at gaze; and suddenly from the tall grass a long, tawny shape launched upward and forward, and a great panther fell upon one of the deer, bearing it to the ground.
Almayne turned in his saddle and spoke a word to Lachlan, then wheeled his horse and galloped down the savannah, the others close behind him.
The big tawny cat, like a lioness in shape and scarcely less in bulk, crouching on the body of the
