evening to make the round of his
snares, unaccompanied by the dog. Rabbit after rabbit he found, gray and
white, hanging stiff and stark, dead from their own weight, strangled in
the twine snares. Snares were set anew, the game strung over his
shoulder, and Koot was walking through the gray gloaming for the cabin
when that strange sense of _feel_ told him that he was being followed.
What was it? Could it be the dog? He whistled--he called it by name.

In all the world, there is nothing so ghostly silent, so deathly quiet
as the swamp woods, muffled in the snow of midwinter, just at nightfall.
By day, the grouse may utter a lonely cluck-cluck, or the snowbuntings
chirrup and twitter and flutter from drift to hedge-top, or the saucy
jay shriek some scolding impudence. A squirrel may chatter out his noisy
protest at some thief for approaching the nuts which lie cached under
the rotten leaves at the foot of the tree, or the sun-warmth may set the
melting snow showering from the swan's-down branches with a patter like
rain. But at nightfall the frost has stilled the drip of thaw. Squirrel
and bird are wrapped in the utter quiet of a gray darkness. And the
marauders that fill midnight with sharp bark, shrill trembling scream,
deep baying over the snow are not yet abroad in the woods. All is
shadowless--stillness--a quiet that is audible.

Koot turned sharply and whistled and called his dog. There wasn't a
sound. Later when the frost began to tighten, sap-frozen twigs would
snap. The ice of the swamp, frozen like rock, would by-and-bye crackle
with the loud echo of a pistol-shot--crackle--and strike--and break as
if artillery were firing a fusillade and infantry shooters answering
sharp. By-and-bye, moon and stars and Northern Lights would set the
shadows dancing; and the wail of the cougar would be echoed by the
lifting scream of its mate. But now, was not a sound, not a motion, not
a shadow, only the noiseless stillness, the shadowless quiet, and the
_feel_, the _feel_ of something back where the darkness was gathering
like a curtain in the bush.

It might, of course, be only a silly long-ears loping under cover
parallel to the man, looking with rabbit curiosity at this strange
newcomer to the swamp home of the animal world. Koot's sense of _feel_
told him that it wasn't a rabbit; but he tried to persuade himself that
it was, the way a timid listener persuades herself that creaking floors
are burglars. Thinking of his many