Almost
instinctively he half raised his hand to his throat. They boy
laughed again, a laugh in which the snarl had nearly driven out the
chuckle, and then, with another of his astonishing lightning
movements, plunged out of view into a yielding tangle of weed and
fern.
"What an extraordinary wild animal!" said Van Cheele as he picked
himself up. And then he recalled Cunningham's remark "There is a
wild beast in your woods."
Walking slowly homeward, Van Cheele began to turn over in his mind
various local occurrences which might be traceable to the existence
of this astonishing young savage.
Something had been thinning the game in the woods lately, poultry
had been missing from the farms, hares were growing unaccountably
scarcer, and complaints had reached him of lambs being carried off
bodily from the hills. Was it possible that this wild boy was
really hunting the countryside in company with some clever poacher
dogs? He had spoken of hunting "four-footed" by night, but then,
again, he had hinted strangely at no dog caring to come near him,
"especially at night." It was certainly puzzling. And then, as Van
Cheele ran his mind over the various depredations that had been
committed during the last month or two, he came suddenly to a dead
stop, alike in his walk and his speculations. The child missing
from the mill two months ago--the accepted theory was that it had
tumbled into the mill-race and been swept away; but the mother had
always declared she had heard a shriek on the hill side of the
house, in the opposite direction from the water.
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