The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1923-02-01

their mysterious calm.
His eyes discerned "A thin flament
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 vas,
had been a tremendous relief TO lin.
At least, it would have enabled him
to keep watch, and o he dreaded the
fall of utter darkness more than he
had ever dreaded anything In his life.
1t 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,
hut he had never really experienced II
before.
He watched with growing horror the
slow extension Of the clouds. Finally
the moon swept under them.
The shadow fell around Bruce. For
the first time he knew the age-old ter
ror Of the darkness. He no longer
knew himself as one of a dominant
the world. He was simply a living
creature in a grim and unconquered
world. alone and helpless In the terror
Of the darkness.
The moonlight alternately grew and
died as the moo 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-
c%entuate the quiet.
He specialized on how many hours
had passed. He wondered if he could
dare to hope that midnight had al
ready gone by and, through some di-
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 erept
through the whole hydraulic system Of
his veins. And then, as a sudden sound
reached him from the forests at n
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 ii M all. Nevertheless, distance
alone had dimmed it /; II had been a
large sound to start with. So far had
it come that only a scratch on the
eardrums was left of il but there was
no chance TO misunderstood IL. 1t
cracked out to him through the unfath-
enable silence, and all the elements by
which he might recognize 1t were dis
tinct. II 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--first 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 rustled
and whispered as something brushed
against them. Leaves ficked together,
and once a heavy limb popped like a
distant sm~all-calibered rifle as a great
weight broke Il 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 II. It might
have been the step of one of the small,
black bears-a harmless and friendly
wilderness dweller. Yet the impress
sion fingered and strengthened that
only some great hunter, a beast who
feared neither other beasts nor men,
had been steadily coming toward him
through the forest.
Al 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 I'm the dusk. He lay
scarcely breathing. trying to fight
down his growing terror.
This silence could mean hut one OF
two things. One Of them was that the
creature who had made the sounds had
turned OFF on one of the many inter
secting game trails that wind through
the forest. This was his hope. The al
tentative vas one of despair. II was
simply thtt the creature had detected
his presence and was stalking him In
silence through the shadows.
He thought that the light would new
or rome He strained again mt the
ropes. The dark cloud swept on and
the moonlight. silver and bright. broke
over the scene.
The forest stood onre more In sharr
silhouette against the sky. He studied
with straining eyes the dark fringe OF
shadows n hundred feet Distant.
Then he deferred a strange variation
in the dark border of shadows. II hello
his gaze, and its outlines slowly