“It’s really very simple,” he explained, “although it is merely an experiment of my own, and may not work as I hope it will. The keg is full of whitewash, and this pump will throw a steady stream for over thirty feet. If we can get the brute within range, my idea is to spray him with whitewash until we can see enough of him to shoot at. White always shows up fairly well in the dark. Catch the idea?”
Doctor Morse gazed at his friend in surprised admiration for an instant; then he impulsively caught his hand in a hard grip.
“You’re a wonder, Bert!” he exclaimed. “I don’t see how you ever thought of it, but the scheme looks good to me. I am honestly beginning to think we have a chance. But what are those boards for?”
“For a platform on the tree yonder,” replied the sheriff, nodding toward a cotton wood. “For obvious reasons I thought it would be safer to do our watching from above ground, and with these boards we can construct a support that will enable us to stay in the tree with some degree of safety. Of course, the thing may be able to climb, for all we know, but we must chance that. The tree is within easy range of the water, and those tall ferns and weeds, if we watch them closely, should give us warning of the beast’s approach. Now let’s get busy, for it will be dark before we know it.”
At the end of half an hour, just as it was actually growing dark within the shadows of the trees, the two men had built a substantial platform in a fork of the cottonwood, some ten feet from the ground, and established themselves upon it. Sheriff Parker’s gun lay beside him, while he grasped the nozzle of the high-pressure pump in his hands; but the coroner’s weapon was ready for instant use.
Swiftly the day turned into night, and for an hour it was as dark as pitch at the edge of the pool; then the moon, surrounded by myriads of stars, slowly climbed up over the hill-tops beyond the water. With eyes riveted upon the ferns, from the movements of which they expected to be warned of the beast’s approach, the two men waited tensely.
For a long time nothing happened. From the blank darkness around them came merely the familiar noises of night in the wilderness—the long, wailing howl of a distant coyote; the chirping drone of the tireless insects in the trees; strange cries of night birds, so different from those of the birds of the day; the “plop” of muskrats diving in the still water, and all the mysterious chorus of small sounds that one never notices until after night has fallen.
Seated on their narrow platform, the watchers were soon very uncomfortable, for the mosquitoes were numerous and hungry, and the men dared not smoke for fear the smell of tobacco would give warning to the thing they sought. Doctor Morse, eyes fixed on the top of a ridge which could be seen through a break in the trees, and beyond which the stars and the moon seemed to be grouped, was half dozing, when suddenly he straightened up with a little start.
A curious thing had taken place! The stars, rising above the crest of the ridge, had successively disappeared from right to left!
Each was blotted out for but an instant, and not more than two or three at the same time, but along half the length of the ridge, all that were within a few degrees of the crest were eclipsed. Something had passed along between them and the coroner’s line of vision; but he could not see it, and the stars were not close enough together to define its shape. After a second of tense watching, Doctor Morse reached out and gripped the sheriff by the arm.