the chief thing was to get away. Then Skag
settled into a perfect calm.

Four spotted deer came trotting up the shoulder of a near incline,
almost directly toward them. The dog watched them with a casual eye.
They went by, sixty feet away. Nels was looking further on to where a
big brown bear ambled along, making good time for one of her
build--behind her, a yearling. Still Nels showed no inclination to
leave his place.

As if it were a vision of the night, the whole landscape before Skag
became dotted with specks; all moving. All moving in the same
direction, almost toward him. As the numbers increased, he saw that
they ran straight; there was no swerving. In spite of what Roderick
Deal had told him, his mind demanded the reassurance of his own voice.

"Nels, is it real? Are we asleep?"

The dog was a stoic; he moved one ear, but he did not lift an eye.

Skag noticed that the hush in the air seemed to have laid a bond of
silence on all these creatures. He had heard no calls, no cries. And
these were the calling, crying animals of the world.

Here and there at some distance, he saw the ungainly, shambling gait of
hyenas, in twos and fours and threes together, or alone. Once when
four passed quite near, he felt Nels' shoulder against his thigh.

"Nels, old man, buck up. I tell you, get a grip. They may be the
devil, but he isn't hard to kill. I'll show you. Do you get me, son?"

Nels looked up into the man's face, a long look. Then he pressed his
head close, under Skag's hand.

Spotted deer ran in small groups; they came into sight and passed out
quickly. More swift and more beautiful, were slender deer with single
horns, twisted spirally; sometimes very long. Skag thrilled to their
pride of action; but Nels seemed in no wise interested.

There was another kind of deer seen at some distance; the bucks were
full-antlered and from where Skag stood, they looked light grey colour.
Rabbits scuttled in and out of sight constantly, all over the landscape.

Between the parallel lines of seven spotted deer on one side and a
small herd of grey deer on the other, he saw a great, low-leaping
beast; plainly yellow with black stripes--one tiger the sportsmen had
not bagged.

Evidently some mighty thing had transcended enmity and annihilated
fear--_for one day_.

Little things held his eye one while. Creatures like monster
rats--they were really mongooses--racing for their lives. Lizards from
two to