Late one afternoon, when I had climbed to the top of the ridge and was on my way back to camp, I ran into an odor, the strong, disagreeable odor that always hovers about the den of a carnivorous animal.  I followed it through a thicket, and came to an open stony place, with a sharp drop of five or six feet to dense cover below.  The odor came from this cover, so I jumped down; when—­yeow, karrrr, pft-pft! Almost under my feet a gray thing leaped away snarling, followed by another.  I had the merest glimpse of them; but from the way they bristled and spit and arched their backs, I knew that I had stumbled upon a pair of the lynx kittens, for which I had searched so long in vain.

They had, probably, been lying out on the warm stones, until, hearing strange footsteps, they had glided away to cover.  When I crashed down near them they had been scared into showing their temper; else I had never seen them in the underbrush.  Fortunately for me, the fierce old mother was away.  Had she been there, I should undoubtedly have had more serious business on hand than watching her kittens.

They had not seen more of me than my shoes and stockings; so when I stole after them, to see what they were like, they were waiting under a bush to see what I was like.  They jumped away again, spitting, without seeing me, alarmed by the rustle which I could not avoid making in the cover.  So I followed them, just a quiver of leaves here, a snarl there, and then a rush away, until they doubled back towards the rocky place, where, parting the underbrush cautiously, I saw a dark hole among the rocks of a little opening.  The roots of an upturned tree arched over the hole, making a broad doorway.  In this doorway stood two half-grown lucivees, fuzzy and gray and savage-looking, their backs still up, their wild eyes turned in my direction apprehensively.  Seeing me they drew farther back into the den, and I saw nothing more of them save now and then their round heads, or the fire in their yellow eyes.

It was too late for further observation that day.  The fierce old mother lynx would presently be back; they would let her know of the intruder in some way; and they would all keep close in the den.  I found a place, some dozen yards above, where it would be possible to watch them, marked the spot by a blasted stub, to which I made a compass of broken twigs; and then went back to camp.

Next morning I omitted the early fishing, and was back at the place before the sun looked over the ridge.  Their den was all quiet, in deep shadow.  Mother Lynx was still away on the early hunting.  I intended to kill her when she came back.  My rifle lay ready across my knees.  Then I would watch the kittens a little while, and kill them also.  I wanted their skins, all soft and fine with their first fur.  And they were too big and fierce to think of taking them alive.  My vacation was over.  Simmo was already packing up, to break camp that morning.  So there would be no time to carry out my long-cherished plan of watching young lynxes at play, as I had before watched young foxes and bears and owls and fish-hawks, and indeed almost everything, except Upweekis, in the wilderness.