| Show ciffa the liate 27 v A of the h pi bv edison marshall author orThe Voice op illustrations ly invin dueis CHAPTER charging bruce with attempt attempting inc to leipen beope n the blood feud the th ton a aitt ft r a mock t trial rl al decides to leave lav 1 I torii 1 aa M 1 11 r rapture mur on the spot pot of ar had wain and half eaten 1 mar lil i talt ht before they look for i arv v alb 4 ua art dizzly and the ho probable 9 kylii ly lii or arii ii y the animal baure helpless hel alu awaits arivel of the killer and death the anin of 0 the blow was quite gone now except for a 0 strange sickness that had her hut but she was wan ne pr colder of nerve nod surer of df inutile in muscle she he lay iny I 1 co bv b litile brown oia C calit alm before ilce crept through hr ough ill the dol r so that it if simon chanced cha ea to I 1 look it lie he would tall fall to see e L I 1 it that at the she roll him she crept to the thickets therl stood up three hundred yards down the slope she could see simons dirr ming figure in the moon leht and siftley sIft ly sho sped aped after him CHAPTER the shadow that bruce saw at the edge of nf tle the forest could not be mistaken as to identity the hopes hope s that he fe had be held ad b ebo redi at this stalking figure might be that ot of a deer or tin nn elk could no longer be entertained men as ai a rule do not love the wild and walling sobs robs of a coyote as he looks down upon a camp fire from the ridge above sleep does not come easily when a gaunt wolf walks in a slow inquisitive cirle about the pallet scarcely carcell car cely a leaf rus ailing beneath his feet and a few times in the history of the front frontier ler men have had queer ting tingling lings and cree pings in the scalp when they have happened to glance over their shoulders and see the eye eyes of a great tawny purna puma glowing an odd blue in the firelight yet bruce would have had any one of these or on all three together in preference to the killer the reason was wag extremely simple no words have ever been capable of expressing the depths of cowardice of which B n coyote Is 1 capable ite ile will w whine hine nod weep about a camp like a soul I lt at between two worlds hut but if he Is in his mind he be would lieve cadi one of 0 tits his gray cray hairs plucked out one by one rather racher than ilion attack a man ann the nip cunning breed to which lie be bronas has found out that it pay the wolf Is sometimes brave when he Is fortified by his pack brethren in the winter lint hut in such a season as this lie he Is particularly careful to keep out of the sight of man and the tawny one hidir himself elf waite fain ed and long clawed and powerful as he Is noer iwer gets pc ts farther than certain dreadful speculative dreams aing but none of these was true of the killer lie ile hud had already shown till his scorn of men ills very stride showed that he feared no living creature that shored shared the forest with him in fact act he considered himself the fareed muster the bear Is never a particularly timid animal and whatever timidity the killer possessed was as utterly pone gone as yesterdays daylight pruce watched him with eyes it might be that the killer would tall fall td ta discern his outline bruce hd had no knowledge as ag yet that it it 11 movement rather than form to alch which the eyes of the wild creatures crea turea are most receptive out but he acted upon that fact now DOW as if by instinct he was not lying in quite alte the exact spot where the killer had left his dead the preceding night and possibly his hi outline wat riot not enough like it to attract the grizzles grizz lys attention besides in the intermittent light it was wholly possible that the grizzly would try to and aln the remains of ills his feast by sirac M sir GI fc alone and it if this were lacking and bruce made no movements to attract his attention he might wonder wander away in search of other game for tle the first time in his life bruce brow knew fear as it really was it la 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 ea gen etl have bay mostly DIMY forgotten what it Is like if they experience peri ence it at all it Is usually only in a dream that arises arise from the germ a nightmare to paralyze the muscles and chill the heart arid and freeze m man in his bed the moon was strange and white as aa it I in and out of the clouds cloud and the forest mys leriou as death itself lightened and darkened alternately with a strange effect of unreality but for all that bruce could not make himself believe that this was just juit a dream the ill e dreadful reality remained that the killer whose name and works he be I 1 knew was even now investigating him from the shadows one hundred feet away the fear that came to him WB a that of the young world orld fear without recompense om pense direct and primitive fear that grew on him like a sickness it was wa the fear that the deer knew as they crept down their dusky trails at night it was the fear of darkness and silence and pain and heaven knows it flows what cruelty that would be visited upon him by those terrible rending fangs and claws it was the fear that can be heard in the pack song in ithe the dreadful winter season and that can be felt in strange overtones in the tabbing sobbing wall of despair that the coyo coyote t e utters in the half balf darkness he had bad been afraid for his life every moment he be was in the hands of the turner he knew that it if he survived flit this a of night gilt ike ha would goald hay have to face death again ha no hops t ranee alto potter bc me vet laan 0 m and ad ff wor feed ea wn kick made grid 1 not ip C and nn 1 pica ire he I 1 f fac Q icea brawly y oatt tt it was a hard bard ta k terii eo a strona hcan rt in in the face of thu this ancient tear fear of at beasts the killer seemed disturbed alt orbed and moved slowly along the edge bilge of at the moonlight bruce could trace his big movements by the irregularity la in the line of shadows ile he seemed to bo be moving more cautiously than ever now bruce could not hear the slight eat sound for an instant he had bad an exultant hope that the bear would continue condone on down the edge of the forest find and leave him and hla his heart stood still as the great beast paused sniffing but some smell in tb the air lr seemed to reach him and he came stealing back in reality the killer was puzzled he had come to this place straight hl through the forest with the expects tion tha lood food flesh to tear with hh bit fangs would be waiting tor for him and now cow as he waited at the border of 01 the darkness ho he knew that a strange change chance lad had taken place and the killer did not like strangeness the smell that he had expected had dimmed to such an extent that it promoted no muscular impulse perhaps it was only obliterated by a stranger smell one that was vaguely familial and wakened a slow brooding anger in his great beasts heart lie he was not timid yet he retained some of his natural caution and remained in the gloom while he be made his probably it was a hunting instinct alone he crept slowly up and down the border of moonlight and ills his anger seemed to grow and deepen within him ile he felt dimly 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 that experience all at once a movement far across the pasture caught his attention it seemed that some one had come taken ole oie glanceau glan ceat the drama at the edge of the forest and had departed bruce himself had not seen the figure and perhaps it was the mercy of fate not usually merciful that he did not ne he might have been caused to hope again only to know a deeper despair when the man left him without giving old aid for the tall form had bad been that of simon corni coming Dg as linda had bad anticipated for a moments inspection spec tion of his handiwork and seeing that it was good he had departed again the me 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 a heavy patch ot of cloud and in that moment the killer understood der stood lie ile remembered now possibly the upright form of simon had bad suggested it t to himl poa the wind haa bad only blown straighter and thus permitted him to identify the troubling smells all at once a memory flashed over him of a scene in a distant glen and similar tall figures that tried to drive him from his food he had charged then struck once and one of the corpas had lain very still he remembered remember eil the pungent maddening odor that tad ld reached him after hl his blow bad gone home host clearly of all he remembered how bow his claws had struck and sunk aunt he knew this strange shadow now it was just another of that tall breed he be had learned to hate and it was simply lying prone as hla his toe foe had done after the charge beside little river in fact the still lying form recalled the other occasion with particular vividness the excitement that he had felt beffie returned to him now he remembered ills his disappointment when the hie whistling bullets from the hillside 1 above had driven him from his dead rut but there were no whistling bullets bullet now except for them there would have been further rapture beside that st stream renni nit but he might have it now the oll old hunting madness came back to him hill it was fair game this that 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 hla his side gave him a twinge of pain it served to make memories nil all the clearer the lurid lights grew la in his eyes rage swept over him but he charge blindly ile he retained enough of his hunting caution to know that to stalk was the proper course ile he moved farther out from the edge of the forest at that instant the moon came out and revealed him all too vividly to t bruce the killers great rent gray my figure in the liiv silver er light was creeping toward him across the slivered silvered grass 7 0 W when hen linda and left lef t her house her first realization on was the need of caution ca atlon it would riot not do to let simon see her and she ohe knew that only her long t training ra in in the file hills her practice tire in climbing the winding trails would enable her to keep pace with the fast walking roan man without being seen in her concern tor for bruce linda had completely forgotten the events ev ants of the earlier part of the evening wild and stirring though they were they now DOW seemed to her as incidents of remote years nothing to be remembered in tills hour bour of crisis but she remembered them vividly when two hundred yards from the house she saw tw two strange figures coming toward her between the lie moonlit tree trunks I 1 there was lery err little of reality iler diw foremost figure ni inix atud strange but she knew that it could be no one but elmira tha bowart salt nd TO 0 BE CONTINUED |
