“Have you heard someone about, or is it only a fancy that you have got in your thick old head?” asked Pam; but although the dog wagged its tail at the sound of her voice, it began to growl again the next moment, and then went creeping forward, its teeth still bared, and looking so fierce and ugly that Pam was more than half-afraid.
Then she caught sight of the angle of a shingled roof, and guessed that she was close to the half-ruined shack that stood on her grandfather’s land.
“Did the poor dear see a house, and didn’t the poor dear like it?” she asked the dog, jumping at once to the conclusion that it was the nearness to a dwelling-place that made the dog growl. It took no notice of her this time, but crept forward with great caution, growling so low down in its throat that it seemed to be swallowing its own voice.
A queer purring noise, such as a very big cat might make, broke on the ears of Pam. The dog heard it too, and growled more fiercely than before. Pam had a cold sensation, and her limbs seemed suddenly paralysed. She lifted one foot by a great effort, took a step forward, tried to lift the other, failed, and would have fallen, for she trembled so badly, only she gripped at the slender stem of a young spruce growing close to the edge of the tote road, and clung to it, quite helpless from the overmastering terror that had seized upon her.
Without doubt it was that same terror which saved her life. If she had not been so badly scared she would have moved forward when the dog went. As it was, she clung to the trunk of the tree, the rough bark bruising her bare hands, her heart beating so fast that it made her feel downright sick.
The broken door of the shack was half-open. The dog was close to it now, creeping and creeping, as if ready for a spring. The purring sound had dropped to silence, and a minute passed which seemed to Pam as long as hours. Then came an awful, ear-splitting yell, as a lithe grey creature hurled itself out from the shattered door like an arrow from a bow straight at the dog. Pam heard a shriek of pure terror, yet had no idea that it was herself who had screamed. The dog swerved, the lithe grey thing hit the ground beside it, and then dog and the unknown fury were rolling over in the deadliest of combats.
The dog would be killed, Pam was sure of it, and she simply could not stand by to see her dumb friend done to death. Instead of running away, which under the circumstances would have been the highest discretion, she dashed towards the door of the shack, intending to get hold of a piece of wood which might do for a weapon. She had almost reached the door when out bounded another creature, sinuous of body, grey of hue, with a thick head, short ears, and fetid breath that seemed to smite her like a poison blast as the beast bowled her over in its mad rush to get away. Pam was somewhat stunned by her fall, for her head struck against a stump, and she lay where she had been flung, too dazed to rise.
She came to her senses to find a weirdly dishevelled figure helping her to her feet, a man with a familiar voice, but his face so smothered in dirt and blood that it was not easy to remember where she had seen him before. Then she recalled the man whom at the first she had supposed to be a tramp. He was speaking to her, but she had difficulty in understanding what he said, for he mumbled so, and his mouth was bleeding.
“Did the beast claw you? Say, now, did it claw you?” he was asking with desperate anxiety.
Pam put her hand to her head.