"It didn't look much like it, when he come away and forgot her."
"He told the truth when he said he forgot her; he is the most absent-minded man I ever saw. He sometimes forgets where he is, and until I asked him where she was, he had no idea that he had such a thing in the broad world as a niece named Katrina Duncan."
"Perhaps he has wandered away in one of his absent spells."
"It may be, but I hardly believe it."
All this time, while the two were talking, each had been listening to something on the opposite side of the stream.
Neither had made any reference to it, as he wanted to avoid any mistake, but while holding converse, their eyes kept wandering across the stream in quest of the cause of the disturbance.
The disturbance itself was in the shape of a slight rustling of the bushes. At first, it seemed to be caused by the wind; but when it was continued and repeated for several minutes, it was manifest that there was some definite cause for it.
More than one glance had been cast across the creek, but nothing at all was discerned for some time, that could explain what it meant.
Instinctively reading the thoughts of Crockett, the Texan said:
"I guess it's a wild animal."