Thrice it was repeated; then, as the two men sprang to their feet in expectation of an attack, the sound of running feet broke upon their ears.
The next instant, through the twilight, loomed the monstrous form of a gigantic elk.
“Jupiter!”
“Great Scott!”
The exclamations burst simultaneously from the two men, as the huge bull—almost as large as an elephant—flashed past them. His great tongue was lolling out, and his mighty sides heaved madly, as the breath poured, hissing, through his nostrils.
He was evidently nearly spent, for, when he had covered a score yards or so, he swung round and stood at bay, with his back against a boulder almost opposite to the one in the shadow of which the rescuers were flattening themselves, with their rifles at the ready.
His towering antlers gleamed like silver in the light of a great fungus growing close at hand; yet, for all the vast size of the creature, for all his great strength, there was something indescribably pathetic in the droop of the proud head, and a great feeling of pity rose in the hearts of the watchers for the hunted brute.
“What a magnificent creature!” Seymour whispered; “but where are its——”
His sentence ended in a choking gasp, and his face paled beneath its tan, as, silent as phantoms, six sinister forms glided out of the shadows.
So hideous were they in form that the two comrades stood as though stunned, every energy being completely paralysed by the horror of the things.