Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-11-24

tion that food-feSh to tear with his
fangs-would be waiting for him. And
now, as he waited at the border of
the darkness, he knew that a strange
change had taken place. And the
Killer did not like strangeness.
The smell that he had expected had
dimmed to such an extent that 1t pro
NOTED no muscular impulse. Perhaps
it was only obliterated by a stranger
smell-one that was vaguely familiar
and wakened slow, brooding ar-er
In his great beasts heart
lie was not timid; set he retained
some of his natural caution and re-
mained in the gloom while he m@le
his investigations. Probably it was
hunting instinct alone. He crept slow
ly up and down the border of mo- n
light, and his anger seemed to grow
and deepen within him. He felt dnlv
that he had been cheated out of his
meal. And once before he had been
similarly cheated; but there had been
singular triumph at the end of q ut
experience.
All at Cnce movement, far acr -
the pasture, caught his attention. it
seemed that some one had come, ia en
one glance at the drama at the tt%e
of the forest and had departed.
Bruce himself had not seen the figure;
and perhaps it was the mercy of F"|e
not usually merciful-that he did
not. He might have been caused 10
hope again. only to know deeper
| despair when the man left him with
out giving aid For the tall form had
| been that of Simon coming, as LINDA
| had anticipated, for a moments m
! spection of his handiwork. And see
| ing that it was good, he had depart
ed again.
The grizzly watched him go, then
turned back to his questioning regard
of the strange. dark figure that lay
so prone in the grass in front. The
darkness dropped over him as The
moon went behind heavy patch or
cloud.
And in that moment the Killer un-
!
sibly the upright form of Simon hah
| suggested it to him; possibly the wind
| had only blown straighter and thus
permitted him to identify the troubling
smells. All at once a memory mashed
| over him-of a scene in distant glen,
and similar tall figures that tried TO
drive him from his food. He had
charged then. struck once, and one
of the forms had lain very still. lie
remembered the pungent, maddenin%
odor that had reached him after MS
| blow had gone home. Most clearly {.
all. he remembered how his claws lia |
struck and sunk.
He knew this strange shadow now.
| 1t was just another Of that tall breed
he had learned to hate, and 1t was SIM
ply lying prone as his foe had done
after the charge beside Little river. In
fact, the stiIl-lying form recalled tie
other occasion with particular vivid
ness The excitement that he had felt
before returned to him now; he re-
membered his disappointment when
the whistling bullets from the hillside
| above had driven him from his dead.
But there were no whistling bullets
now. Except for them, there would
have been further rapture beside that
stream but he might have it now.
The old hunting madness came back
to him. 1t was fair game, this tnat
| lay so still in the grass. just as the
body of the calf had been and just
as the warm body of Hudson in the
distant glen.
The wound at his side gave him Il
twinge of pain. 1t served to make his
memories all the clearer The lurid
lights grew in his eyes Rage swept
over him.
But he didn't charge blindly. He re-
tained enough of his hunting caution
to know that to stalk was the proper
course. He moved farther out from
the edge of the forest.
At that instant the moon came out
and revealed him, all too vividly, TO
Bruce. The Killers great gray figure
in the silver light was creeping to-
ward him across the silvered grass.
When Linda left her house, her first
realization was the need of caution. 1t
would not do to let Simon see her
And she knew that only her long train
ing in the hills, her practice in climb
! ing the winding trails, would enable
her to keep pace with the fast-walking
man without being seen.
In her concern for Bruce, Linda had
completely forgotten the events OF the
earlier part of the evening. Wild and
stirring though they were, they now
seemed to her as incidents of remote
years, nothing to be remembered in
this hour of crisis. But she remem-
bered them vividly when, two hundred
| yards from the house, she saw two
| strange figures coming toward her be-
| tween the moonlit tree trunks.
| There was very little of reality
about either. The foremost figure
was bent and strange, but she knew
that it could be no one but Elmira.
| The second hOwever-half-obsc
behind her-offered no Interpretation
| of outline at all at first. But at the