The tail, indeed, was the oddest thing about it.

It was not over five inches in length, curving stiffly upward, and looking as if it had been "stumped," as the tails of terriers usually are.

It was not so, however.

Five inches was all the tail it ever had; and this shortness of tail, with the thick clumsy legs--but, above all, the high tufted ears, approaching each other at their tips,--enabled the young hunters to tell what it was--_a lynx_.

It was that species known as the "bay lynx" (_lynx rufus_), commonly called in America the "wild cat," and sometimes the "catamount." It was the Texas variety of this animal--which is deeper in colour than the common bay lynx, and, I think, a different species.
It was evidently doing its best to get near the little hares, and seize one or both of them.