nced to Morgan's side, cocking
my piece as I moved.

"The bushes were now quiet, and the sounds had ceased, but Morgan was as
attentive to the place as before.

"'What is it? What the devil is it?' I asked.

"'That Damned Thing!' he replied, without turning his head. His voice
was husky and unnatural. He trembled visibly.

"I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the
place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way. I can
hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which
not only bent it, but pressed it down--crushed it so that it did not
rise, and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us.

"Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me so strangely as this
unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon, yet I am unable to recall any
sense of fear. I remember--and tell it here because, singularly enough,
I recollected it then--that once, in looking carelessly out of an open
window, I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a
group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size
as the others, but, being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass
and detail, seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification
of the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified me.
We so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any
seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning
of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless movement of the
herbage, and the slow, undeviating approach of the line of disturbance
were distinctly disquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened,
and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw his
gun to his shoulders and fire both barrels at the agitated grass! Before
the smoke of the discharge had cleared away I heard a loud savage
cry--a scream like that of a wild animal--and, flinging his gun upon the
ground, Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same
instant I was thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something
unseen in the smoke--some soft, heavy substance that seemed thrown
against me with great force.

"Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to
have been struck from my hands, I heard Morgan crying out as if in
mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse savage sounds
as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly ter