With eager eyes riveted on the spot where he had last seen the brown object, Ralph raised his rifle. His hands trembled but he steadied them with an effort, fighting off the attack of “buck fever,” as a hunter’s excitement at the prospect of big game is termed.
Suddenly the brown object appeared again, bobbing about behind a clump of brambles.
“It’s a deer’s head, sure!” breathed Ralph.
He drew a careful bead on the object, devoutly hoping that his sights were adjusted right for the range, which was about a hundred yards.
“Now for it,” he said to himself, as he prepared to press the trigger.
But the shot was never fired, for just as Ralph was about to send a bullet crashing from his weapon there stepped into view from behind the brush, the figure of a man!
Ralph shook as if from a fever. Another instant and he might have been a murderer! The man had revealed himself in the nick of time. But hardly had Ralph discovered his mistake when the man saw him. Without a word he dashed off like a wild animal, crouching and diving as he went, and in a flash was out of sight.
In the brief interval that Ralph had had to scrutinize the man he had so nearly shot, he had not received more than a general impression as to what he looked like. But this impression was startling enough. It was of a creature bearded with a hairy growth that reached almost to his waist, half naked and with long, unkempt hair and wild eyes.
But even so, he had a queer intuition that this half wild creature and the silent watcher on the rock were one and the same individual.