What was that panting?
Was it her own breathing, quickened with a sudden nameless terror?
or was there something outside?
Her heart seemed to stop beating while she listened.

Yes! it was a panting outside--a panting now increased, multiplied, redoubled, mixed with the sounds of rustling, tearing, craunching, and occasionally a quick, impatient snarl.

She crept on her hands and knees to the opening and looked out.

At first the ground seemed to be undulating between her and the opposite tree.

But a second glance showed her the black and gray, bristling, tossing backs of tumbling beasts of prey, charging the carcass of the bear that lay at its roots, or contesting for the prize with gluttonous, choked breath, sidelong snarls, arched spines, and recurved tails.