The Adair County news., 1922-11-14

in now. He tried to shut his ears to
them.
He rolled again to his back and
tried to find peace for his spirit in the
stars. There were millions of them.
They were larger and more bright
than any time he had ever seen them.
They stood in their high places, wholly
Indifferent and impasSive to all the
strife and confusion of the world be-
low them; and Bruce wished that he
could partake of their spirit enough so
that he could rise above the fear and
bitterness that had begun to Oppress
him. But only the pines could talk to
them. Only the tall trees, stretching
upward toward them, could reach into
their mysterious calm.
His eyes discerned a thin fIament
of cloud that had swept up from be-
hind the ridges, and the sight recalled
him to his own position with added
force. The moonlight, soft as it was,
had been a tremendous, relief to him.
At least, 1t would have enabled him
to keep watch, and now he dreaded the
fall Of utter darkness more than he
had ever dreaded anything in his life.
It was an ancient instinct, coming
straight from the young days Of the.
world when nightfall brought the hunt
ing creatures to the mouth of the cave.
but he had never really experienced it
before.
He watched with growing horror the
slow extension Of the clouds. Finally
the moon swept under them.
The shadow fell around Bruce. Foe
the first time he knew the age-old ter
ror of the darkness. he no longer
knew himself as one Of a dominant
breed, master Of all the wild things in
the world. He was simply a living
creature in a grim and uRconquered
world, alone and helpless in the terror
Of the darkness.
The moonlight alternately grew and
died as the moon passed in and out
of the heavier cloud patches. Winds
must have been blowing in the high
lanes Of the air, but there was no
breath OF them where Bruce lay. The
forests were silent, and the little rus
things and STRINGS that reached him
from time to time only seemed to ac-
centuate the quiet.
He speeuIated on how many hours
dare to hope that midnight had al
ready gone by and, through some d.
vergence from wilderness customs, the
grizzly had failed to return to his
feast. 1t seemed endless hours since
he had re-entered the empty rooms Of
Linda's home. A wave of hope crept
through the whole hydraulic system of
his veins. And then, as a sudden sound
reached him from the forests at one
side, that bright wave of hope turned
black, receded and left only despair.
He heard the sound but dimly. In
fact, except for his straining with ev-
cry nerve alert, he might not have
heard it at all. Nevertheless, distance
alone had dimmed it; it had been a
large sound to start with. So far had
it come that only a scratch on the
eardrumS was left of it but there was
no chance to misunderstood it. 1t
cracked out to him through the unfath-
Omable silence, and all the elements by
which he might recognize it were dis
tinct. 1t was the noise of a heavy
thicket being broken down and parted
before an enormous body.
He listened, straining. Then he
heard the sound again. Whoever came
toward him had passed the heavy
brush by now. The sounds that
reached him were just faint and inter-
mittent whispers-frst of a twig
cracking beneath a heavy foot, then
the rattle of two pebbles Knocked to-
gether. Long moments of utter silence
would ensue between, in which he
could hear the steady drum Of his
heart in his breast. and the long roll
of his blood in his veins.
The limbs of a young fir tree rustIed
and whispered as something brushed
against them. Leaves flicked together,
and once heavy limb popped like a
distant small-calibered rifle as a great
weight broke it in two. Then, as If
the gods of the wilderness were using
all their ingenuity to torture him, the
silence closed down deeper than ever
before.
1t lasted so long that he began to
hope again. Perhaps the sounds had
been made by a deer stealing on its
way to feed in the pastures. Yet he
knew the step had been too heavy for
anything but the largest deer, and
their way was to encircle a thicket
rather than crash through it. 1t might
have been the step of one of the small,
black bears-a harmless and friendly
wilderness dwelIer. Yet the impress
sion fingered and strengthened that
only some great hunter, beast who
feared neither other beasts nor men,
had been steadily coming toward him
through the forest.
At that instant the moon slipped
under a particularly heavy fragment
of cloud, and deep darkness settled
over him. Even his white face was no
longer discernible In the dusk. He lay
scarcely breathing, trying to fight
down his growing terror
This silence could mean but one OF
two things. One of them was that the
creature who had made the sounds had
furDad oer o., 90 - a. - -.