Just at that moment there was a crash and a scream. He saw a wide-winged, ghostly object come over the edge and swoop down. Another scream, another and another, a tearing sound, a crushing of cedar boughs, a shower of small stones and lumps of soil.
Tolliver, frightened as he never before had been, turned and fled, followed by his ecstatic dog.
A voice, keen, clear, high, beseeching pursued him and reached his ears.
“Help! help! Oh, help!”
Surely this was the “Harnt that walks Mt. Boab!” This syren of the mountains had lured many a hunter to his doom.
“Oh, me! Oh, my! Oh, mercy on me! Help! help!”
Tolliver ran all the faster, as the voice seemed to follow him, turn as he would. He bruised his shins on angular rocks, he ran against trees, he fell over logs, and at last found himself hopelessly entangled in a net of wild grape-vines, with his enthusiastic dog still faithfully wriggling between his knees.
The plaintive voice of the syren, now greatly modified by distance, assailed his ears with piteous persistence, as he vainly struggled to free himself. The spot was dark as Erebus, being in the bottom of a ravine, and the more he exerted himself the worse off he became.
It was his turn to call for help, but if any of his friends heard they did not heed his supplications, thinking them but baleful echoes of the Harnt’s deceitful voice.
It was at the gray of dawn when at last Tolliver got clear of the vines and made his way out of the ravine. By this time he had entirely overcome his fright, and with that stubbornness characteristic of all mountain men, he betook himself back to the exact spot whence he had so precipitately retreated. His dog, forlornly nonchalant, trotted behind him to the place and resumed the seat from which the Harnt had driven him a few hours ago. In this attitude, the animal drooped his nose and indifferently sniffed a curious object lying near.