He was in the act of reaching up when, at a slight sound, he turned and looked straight into the round, black end of a rifle, less than six feet from his chest!
Down at the stock was the big bull-dog face of the ghost-man, leering at him triumphantly.
The peculiar, erratic impulses of the psychological moment are ever puzzling and insoluble. Lem gazed calmly, almost unconcernedly, down upon Peter Burton. Indeed, at this instant, there was no more evidence of excitement in Lem's face and mien, than had the revenuer been a venturesome fox squirrel gamboling about.
Lem almost grinned pleasantly, as he turned and reaching up, placed the young hawk safely on a low branch.
The little creature threw out his wings. Lem steadied it with careful deliberation, then leaped down from the boulder. The instant his feet struck the ground it seemed to shock his very blood into icy currents that congealed and left him befuddled and shivering.
As he stared into the revenuer's insolent face, the earth looked like a pinwheel.
Suddenly the film lifted from his brain and he was conscious for the first time that the revenuer had taken his rifle. The man's thick lips were moving. He was talking to him. Lem's poise came back. Fully aroused, his face went livid with rage. The revenuer perceived this and thrust the rifle muzzle closer.
"You don't doubt that I'll shoot, do you?" he inquired, with his eyes fixed savagely upon Lem.
"Naw, houn'-dog," returned the boy in low, quavering tones. "Yo'd kill a female baby."
The revenuer laughed.