"Miller is coming back very fast!" she whispered to her lover. "I believe he has good news!"
Miller was coming fast, holding out in one hand something red and gray—something that dangled and flapped as he strode—something that looked horrible and raw.
"Damn him!" said the old man fiercely, "no wonder he ain't a-feedin'! Look at this, Miss Seagrave. There's more of it below—a hull mess of it in the snow."
"It's a big strip of deer-hide—all raw and bleeding!" faltered the girl. "What in the world has happened?"
"His work," said Miller grimly.
"The—the big boar?"
"Yes'm. The deer yard over there. He sneaked in on 'em last night and this doe must have got stuck in a drift. And that devil caught her and pulled her down and tore her into bits. Why, the woods is all scattered with shreds o' hide like this! I wish to God you or Mr. Mallett could get one crack at him! I do, by thunder! Yes'm!"
But it was already too dusky among the trees to sight a rifle. In silence they strapped up the coats, fastened on snow-shoes, and moved out along the bare spur of the mountain, where there was still daylight in the open, although the thickening snow made everything gray and vague.
Here and there a spectral tree loomed up among the rocks; a white hare's track, paralleled by the big round imprints of a lynx, ran along the unseen path they followed as Miller guided them toward Westgate.
Later, outlined in the white waste, ancient apple-trees appeared, gnarled relics of some long-abandoned clearing; and, as they passed, Duane chanced to glance across the rocks to the left.