“I guess it’s goin’ to take us all our time,” drawled the Yankee. “You can gamble on it the old man’ll lose no time in gettin’ on our trail again.”
“You think he’ll pursue, then?” queried the baronet.
“Think!” Haverly repeated. “I guess we can put it stronger than that. It’s a dead cert. the galoot’ll be on our trail again within a couple of hours, an’ then there’ll be a circus.”
“The heap of débris may check pursuit for a time,” suggested Mervyn.
“It may,” was the dubious reply, “but I doubt it. I calculate if you could pile the hull range of the Rockies way back there it wouldn’t stop them wolf-men for more than a second or two. Their shanks seemed to be built of watch-springs. Anyway, with that old priest urgin’ ’em on, it’ll be little short of an earthquake as’ll check ’em. What the blazes is that?”
A scream rang out through the silence, menacing and terrible.
“Vampires!” cried Seymour, and examined the breech of his rifle. As he snapped to the lever an immense vampire dropped swiftly downward through the twilight. On the instant the baronet fired, and the brute, lurching, recovered itself with difficulty, and flapped out of sight.
“Whatever was it?” gasped the scientist, amazed at the vast size of the creature, of whose shape he had caught but a fleeting glimpse.
“A vampire,” Seymour replied; “the same kind of brute that attacked Silas and me as we were returning to the boat.”
“I had forgotten for the moment,” returned Mervyn. “What terrible brutes they are! Who would have dreamed that such creatures existed? Truly this——”