Kenton thought that, possibly, it was Lark, who, like himself, had scouted into the Shawnee village, and was retreating to safer quarters.
Then, through the dim aisles of the forest came a dark form gliding onward with stealthy steps. In the uncertain light Kenton thought he recognized the figure of Abe Lark, the scout. Bending down from his hiding-place, Kenton was about to warn him that a friend was near, when the dark form crossed a little opening upon which the moonbeams cast their rays of silvery light, and Kenton caught a glimpse of the form as it glided through the moonlit opening.
The lion-hearted scout almost dropped from the tree when his eyes fell upon that form. The hair upon his head rose in absolute fright. His eyeballs were distended, and cold drops of sweat stood like waxen beads upon his bronzed forehead.
Well might he feel a sense of terror, for there below him glided—what?
The vast proportions of a huge gray wolf, walking erect upon hind legs, but the wolf possessed the face of a human!
A moment only the wolf—man or phantom—whatever it was—was beheld by the astonished scout, then it disappeared in the gloom of the thicket.
With the back of his hand Kenton wiped the perspiration—cold as the night-dew—from his brow.
“I’ve seen it!” he muttered, to himself. “It’s the Wolf Demon. Jerusalem! I’d rather fight forty Shawnees than have a tussle with a monster like that. I always thought that the Injun story ’bout the Wolf Demon was all bosh, but now I’ve seen it; so near the Shawnee village, too. Thar’ll be a hurricane soon, or I’m a Dutchman.”
Leaving the scout to his meditations, we will follow the course of the terrible figure that had so affrighted the stout Simon Kenton, who was one of the bravest hearts on the border.
Cautiously and carefully through the thicket the creature glided. It was making its way to the Scioto river.