“Could you not uncover the brook?” asked Miss Leslie. “If animals have been drinking here, one would prefer cleaner water.”
“Sure,” assented Blake. “If you’re game for a climb, and can wait a few minutes, we’ll get it out of the spring itself. We’ve got to go up anyway, to get at our poultry yard.”
“Here’s a place that looks like a path,” called Winthrope, who had circled about the edge of the pool to the farther side.
Blake ran around beside him, and stared at the tunnel-like passage which wound up the limestone ledges beneath the over-arching thickets.
“Odd place, is it not?” observed Winthrope. “Looks like a fox run, only larger, you know.”
“Too low for deer, though–and their hoofs would have cut up the moss and ferns more. Let’s get a close look.”
As he spoke, Blake stooped and climbed a few yards up the trail to an overhanging ledge, four or five feet high. Where the trail ran up over this break in the slope the stone was bare of all vegetation. Blake laid his club on the top of the ledge, and was about to vault after it, when, directly beneath his nose, he saw the print of a great catlike paw, outlined in dried mud. At the same instant a deep growl came rumbling down the “fox run.” Without waiting for a second warning, Blake drew his club to him, and crept back down the trail. His stealthy movements and furtive backward glances filled his companions with vague terror. He himself was hardly less alarmed.
“Get out of the trees–into the open!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, and as they crept away, white with dread of the unknown danger, he followed at their heels, looking backward, his club raised in readiness to strike.
Once clear of the trees, Winthrope caught Miss Leslie by the hand, and broke into a run. In their terror, they paid no heed to Blake’s command to stop. They had darted off so unexpectedly that he did not overtake them short of a hundred yards.
“Hold on!” he said, gripping Winthrope roughly by the shoulder. “It’s safe enough here, and you’ll knock out that blamed ankle.”