“You were right,” he shivered. “I found it. I found it to-day, and I knew it by that likeness of its mother. Yes, I found the girl, Smythe.”
Smythe glanced fearfully at the snoring Sambo in the corner.
“Where was she?” he asked in an awed whisper.
Watson did not reply. He picked up the poker and bent above the fire. The cardboard he had tossed in the coals lay there charred and curled. As he gazed upon it, fascinated, a little baby flame sprang out and kissed it to glowing life so that from it a face flashed out, sweet, glad, and triumphant. Then a breeze from the Wild swooped down the wide chimney and carried it away.
CHAPTER XI
The Wild of the Wild
Colonel Hallibut rode the lone trail, his hounds at his heels. A spent moon draggled across a spiteful, crumpled sky, low down above the fringe of ravished forest. The wind had died, and the night was still, except for the calls of the forest things that voice their woes and joys at night. There were the low “whoo-hoos” of the owls, the “perru-perrs” of the night-hawks, and away far down toward the westward came, now and again, a fluted call dying in a wail that bespoke the lynx’s unsuccessful stalking. Deeper down in the forest a stray timber-wolf called hopelessly to a wandering pack. Anon the call was answered faintly, but clearly, far above; then a new note came into the strayer’s voice, and the yelp was sharper, clearer than before.
Colonel Hallibut rode on, his head low and his rifle thrown across his saddle-pommel. Occasionally his lips moved and he sat erect with a jerk.
“Hate me, do they?” he mused. “I wonder why? And I wonder why I should care? I am growing old and fanciful, I guess. Thank God I have my dogs—and a dog is a true friend.”
The thin moon dropped down behind the heavy fringe and the night blackened as the trail narrowed.
“I don’t know but I’ve made a mistake in making Watson and Smythe my agents,” thought the man. “I can’t trust either of them, and——”