SON OF THE WIND
the wary master of the solitude, a wisp of smoke an alarm. Therefore no camp-fires were kindled—not even a pipe lighted. Therefore no timber was hewn. Carron used the strength of the forest, making the posts of his barrier growing trees. These were thick on three sides. On the fourth where the river ran they used the poles, sinking them in the sand of the ford, and where that failed, and the water flowed away into rock, the canvas was stretched as tight as three men could draw it along the high bank until the forest could give it support again. It was finished by noon of the second day. All that was left was the harder task of waiting.
That night black clouds rose with the moon, and unheated, uncomforted, they shivered and endured. Carron was so far advanced into the intense strain of the approaching crisis that he believed himself calm. He believed it did not matter whether anything came or failed to come. Let come what would, nothing could move him again. At one o'clock or a little later, the false calm went into a thousand pieces. With the first sounds in the distance his nerves began to cry out. Uncertainty plucked apart resolution. Will the creature detect the change? the barrier hidden, the runway in the forest? No—still coming, drawing nearer. Now, he is stopping! He has scented it. He must already have entered
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