She was gone, running lightly along the shadowy road. Until she disappeared he stood watching her. Then he lifted the bag and returned to the house.
Mindful of her caution, he shut the outer door and closed the window of his sleeping-room before removing the cord from the mouth of the sack. It was well that he did. When the rangy, rumpled Spit was dumped on the bare floor he gave one baleful glare at the man towering over him, one swift survey of his surroundings, one spitting comment on the place—then he was not where he had been. He was tearing about like tawny lightning let loose.
Douglas made no effort to pursue him. To do so would have been as futile as chasing a comet. He only stood marveling at the animal’s speed and wondering whether he had not better let him out before he shot bodily through a window-pane. What good would Spit do here, anyway? He would be only a complication in the still-hunt of the ha’nt. But—Marion had taken the trouble to bring him, and—— Oh, well, let him stay.
The lank, homely brute threw himself at every window, every door, seeming hardly to have hit one before he was at another. The man gave up even trying to watch him. Moving to his supply-shelf, he cut a chunk of raw bacon and held it until the baffled Spit finally paused, looking for a new point of attack. Then he threw the meat.
Spit jumped into the air, came down glaring, circled the meat, spat at it, sniffed at it, tasted it, considered it with tail yanking from side to side—and accepted it. With famished speed he gnawed it down. When it was gone he lapped his jaws and looked at the man with a shade of friendliness. It was poor cat-food, that smoked fat; but it was food, and the half-wild creature would eat almost anything. In fact, he was ready to devour more of the same.
But he got no more. The man placed on the floor a cupful of water, then shoved his backless chair against the rear wall and settled himself for the vigil. The gloaming now was rapidly thickening into darkness, and there was nothing to do but await events.
For some time he sat quiet, hearing only the solemn chant of deep-voiced crickets, the muffled conversation of katydids, the almost inaudible padding of the cat’s feet on the boards. Now and then he vaguely made out the lean form of the animal pausing near him. Then it moved and vanished into the gloom, uneasily inspecting every inch of the strange quarters. Nothing else passed within his range of vision; nothing stepped around up-stairs; nothing rustled in the bedroom.
An hour droned past, and another crept on its way. The silent man’s lids began to droop. His recently formed habit of going to bed early was asserting itself. So were the drowsiness and languor induced by the bygone heat. The steady chirp of the crickets, too, and the dull darkness—they were floating him gradually away on an ebb of consciousness. He shook himself awake, shifted his position, leaned forward, away from the wall. With renewed alertness he probed the gloom. Nothing was there.
Little by little another hour snailed along. Little by little the watcher slumped farther forward. His gun remained steady across his knees, his eyes stayed open; but his elbows were resting now on his thighs, and his gaze was a somnolent squint, centered on nothing. His body was half asleep, his mind more than half asleep; for it was dreaming, seeing things gone by and places far away, and other things much nearer—but not in this house: some things, indeed, which had not yet come about and might never come. And still nothing occurred to disturb his reverie.
Physical discomfort, not ghostly alarms, roused him again. The chair was hard, his position was growing cramped, his muscles demanded better comfort. Scanning the room again, he noted with surprise that he could see much more plainly. The windows, too, were light, and through them he could make out the darksome bulk of the trees. The Traps gulf was wanly illumined by a late-rising moon.