Proutt’s big head lowered between his shoulders. “So—” he said.
And Westley stepped toward him.
Saladine said nothing; Reck did not stir; and the woods about them were as still as still. It was in this silence, before a blow could be struck, that they heard the sound of running feet in the timber above them; and Saladine said swiftly: “Deer!”
He moved, with the word, half a dozen paces back by the way they had come, to an old wood road they had crossed, and stood there, looking up the slope. Westley and Proutt forgot each other and followed him; and Reck stayed close at Westley’s heel. They could hear the beating feet more plainly now; and Saladine muttered:
“Scared. Something chasing it.”
On the word, abruptly startling them, the deer came into view—a doe, running swiftly and unwearied. Striking the wood road, the creature followed the easier going, down the slope toward them; and because they were so still it failed to discover the men till it was scarce two rods away. Sighting them then, the doe stopped an instant, then lightly leaped into the brush at one side, and was gone.
The men did not look after the deer; they waited to see what pursued it. And after a moment Saladine’s face grimly hardened, and Westley’s became somber and grave, and Proutt turned pale as ashes.
For, lumbering down the hill upon the deer’s hot trail, came Dan, that hound which Proutt had shut away at home—came Dan, hot on the trail as Proutt had taught him.
The dog saw them, as the deer had done, and would have swung aside. But Proutt cried, in a broken voice: “Dan, come in.”
So came the hound to heel, sullenly and slowly, eyes off into the wood where the doe had gone; and for a moment no one spoke, till Saladine slowly drawled: