pervaded the
entire Camp from that moment forward.

I drew Sangree to one side and moved away, while Maloney took the
distressed girl into her tent, and his wife followed them, energetic and
greatly flustered.

For thus, in undramatic fashion, it was that the terror I have spoken of
first attempted the invasion of our Camp, and, trivial and unimportant
though it seemed, every little detail of this opening scene is
photographed upon my mind with merciless accuracy and precision. It
happened exactly as described. This was exactly the language used. I see
it written before me in black and white. I see, too, the faces of all
concerned with the sudden ugly signature of alarm where before had been
peace. The terror had stretched out, so to speak, a first tentative
feeler toward us and had touched the hearts of each with a horrid
directness. And from this moment the Camp changed.

Sangree in particular was visibly upset. He could not bear to see the
girl distressed, and to hear her actually cry was almost more than he
could stand. The feeling that he had no right to protect her hurt him
keenly, and I could see that he was itching to do something to help, and
liked him for it. His expression said plainly that he would tear in a
thousand pieces anything that dared to injure a hair of her head.

We lit our pipes and strolled over in silence to the men's quarters, and
it was his odd Canadian expression "Gee whiz!" that drew my attention to
a further discovery.

"The brute's been scratching round my tent too," he cried, as he pointed
to similar marks by the door and I stooped down to examine them. We both
stared in amazement for several minutes without speaking.

"Only I sleep like the dead," he added, straightening up again, "and so
heard nothing, I suppose."

We traced the paw-marks from the mouth of his tent in a direct line
across to the girl's, but nowhere else about the Camp was there a sign
of the strange visitor. The deer, dog, or whatever it was that had twice
favoured us with a visit in the night, had confined its attentions to
these two tents. And, after all, there was really nothing out of the way
about these visits of an unknown animal, for although our own island was
destitute of life, we were in the heart of a wilderness, and the
mainland and larger islands must be swarming with all kinds of
four-footed creatures, and no very prolonged swimming was necessary to
reach us. In any other country it would not have