Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-11-17
CHAPTER XIII

edge of the forest could not be mis-
taken as to identity The hopes tha:
he had held before-rhat this stalking
figure might be that of a deer OF AZ
elk-could no longer be entertained.
Men, as a rule. do not love the wild
and wailng SObS of Il coyote as he
looks down upon Il camp fire from the
ridge above Sleep does not come cas-
lily when q gaunt wolf walks in q slow
inQuisitive circle about the pallet,
scarcely a leaf rustling beneath his
feet. And a few times, in the history
of the frontier, men have had queer
tinglings and creepings in the scalp
when they have happened to glance
over their shoulders and see the eyes
of a great tawny puma glowing an
odd blue in the freight. Yet, Bruce
would have had any one of these, or
all three together, in preference to the
Killer.
The reason was extremely simple.
No words have ever been capable of
expressing the depths of cowardice Of
which a coyote is capable. He will
whine and weep about a camp, like a
soul lost between two worlds, but If
he is in his right mind he would have
each one of his gray hairs plucked out
one by one, rather than attack man.
The cunning breed to which he belongs
has found out that it doesn't pay. The
wolf is sometimes disquietingly brave
when he is fortified by his pack breth-
ren in the winter, but in such a season
as this he is particularly careful to
keep out of the sight of man. And the
Tawny One himself, white-fanged and
long-clawed and powerful as he is,
never gets farther than certain dread
full, speculative dreams
But none of these was true of the
Killer. He had already shown his
scorn of men. His very stride showed
that he feared no living creature that
shared the forest with him. In, fact,
he considered himself the forest mas
ter. The bear is never a particularly
ttmid animal, and whatever timidity
the Killer possessed was as utterly
gone as yesterdays daylight.
Bruce watched him with unwinking
eyes. 1t might be that the Killer would
fail to discern his outline. Bruce had
no conscious knowledge, as yet, that
1t is movement rather than form to.
which the eyes of the wild creatures
are most receptive. But he acted up
on that fact now as If by instinct. He
was not lying In quite the exact spot
where the Killer had left his dead the
preceding night, and possibly his out
line was not enough like it to attract
the grizzly's attention. Besides, in the
intermittent light, it was wholly pos
sible that the grizzly would try to find
the remains Of his feast by smell
alone; and If this were lacking, and
Bruce made no movements to attract
his attention, he might wander away
in search Of other game.
For the first time in his life, Bruce
knew Fear as 1t really was. 1t Is a
knowledge that few dwellers In cities
can possibly have; and so few times has
it really been experienced in these days
Of civilization that men have mostly
forgotten what 1t 10 like. If they ex-
perience 1t at ALL II is usually only in
a dream that arises from the germ
plasm-a nightmare to paralyze the
muscles and chill the heart and freeze
a man in his bed. The moon was
strange and white as it slipped In and
out of the clouds, and the forest, mys-
terious as Death itself, lightened and
darkened alternately with strange
effect of unreality; but for all that,
Bruce could not make himself believe
that this was just a dream. The
dreadful reality remained that the
Killer, whose name and works he
knew, was even now investigating him
from the shadows one hundred feet
away.