"Here I am, Adrian!" he called. "Here I am! Hey! Here's Roger!"
The echo of his own cry was the only answer. Then came another crackle of the twigs, as if some one was approaching nearer. Roger strained his eyes into the black depths of the forest. He could make out nothing.
Then, as he kept his gaze fixed on one spot, he saw something which seemed to chill his heart. It was two small balls of greenish-red fire, and they looked right at him. At the same time there came to the boy's ears the sound of an angry snarl.
CHAPTER VIII
FIGHTING A WILD-CAT
For one fearful moment Roger felt a cold chill go creeping down his spine, and he shivered in dread at the nameless thing which stood growling there before him. He knew it must be some kind of a wild beast, but what he hardly dared think.
"A bear!" he whispered, and he shrank closer against the tree. Then he recalled what his aunt had said when Mr. Kimball had joked about the denizens of the forest. She said there were no bears.
"Nothing worse than wild-cats," he remembered she had told him, and, though to the frightened boy this was terrible enough, he was glad to know it was not a bear which he could dimly see the outline of.