e
indefinable sixth sense, developed in him by the wilderness, had taken
alarm; there was a presence in the forest, foreign in its nature; it was
not sight nor hearing nor yet smell that told him so, but a feeling or
rather a sort of prescience. Then an extraordinary thrill ran through
him; it was an emotion partaking in its nature of joy and anticipation;
he was about to be confronted by some danger, perhaps a crisis, and the
physical faculties, handed down by a far-off ancestor, expanded to meet
it. He knew that he would conquer, and he felt already the glow of
triumph.

Presently he sank down in the undergrowth so gently that not a bush
rustled; there was no displacement of nature, the grass and the foliage
were just as they had been, but the figure, visible before to the
trained eye at a dozen paces, could not have been seen now at all. Then
he began to creep through the grass with a swift easy gliding motion
like that of a serpent, moving at a speed remarkable in such a position
and quite soundless. He went a full half mile before he stopped and rose
to his knees, and then his face was hidden by the bushes, although the
eyes still searched every part of the forest.

His look was now wholly changed. He might be the hunted, but he bore
himself as the hunter. All vestige of the civilized man, trained to
humanity and mercy, was gone. Those who wished to kill were seeking him
and he would kill in return. The thin lips were slightly drawn back,
showing the line of white teeth, the eyes were narrowed and in them was
the cold glitter of expected conflict. Brown hands, lean but big-boned
and powerful, clasped a rifle having a long slender barrel and a
beautifully carved stock. It was a figure, terrible alike in its
manifestation of physical power and readiness, and in the fierce eye
that told what quality of mind lay behind it.

He sank down again and moved in a small circle to the right. His
original thrill of joy was now a permanent emotion; he was like some one
playing an exciting game into which no thought of danger entered. He
stopped behind a large tree, and sheltering himself riveted his eyes on
a spot in the forest about fifty yards away. No one else could have
found there anything suspicious, anything to tell of an alien presence,
but he no longer doubted.

At the detected point a leaf moved, but not in the way it should have
swayed before the gentle wind, and there was a passing spot of brown in
the green of