Whatever object was approaching
came slowly, as if hesitating at each step--a cautious, stealthy
advance, it struck Nathaniel, and he cocked his weapon. Directly in
front of him, half a stone's throw away, was a dense growth of hazel and
he could see the tops of the slender bushes swaying. Twice this movement
ceased and the second time there came a crashing of brush and a faint
cry. For many minutes after that there was absolute silence. Was it the
cry of an animal that he had heard--or of a man? In either case the
creature who made it had fallen in the thicket and was lying there as
still as if dead. For a quarter of an hour Nathaniel waited and
listened. He could no longer have seen the movement of bushes in the
gathering night-gloom of the forest but his ears were strained to catch
the slightest sound from the direction of the mysterious thing that lay
within less than a dozen rods of him. Slowly he drew himself out from
the shelter of the roots and advanced step by step. Half way to the
thicket a stick cracked loudly under his foot and as the sound startled
the dead quiet of the forest with pistol-shot clearness there came
another cry from the dense hazel, a cry which was neither that of man
nor animal but of a woman; and with an answering shout Nathaniel sprang
forward to meet there in the edge of the thicket the white face and
outstretched arms of Marion. The girl was swaying on her feet. In her
face there was a pallor that even in his instant's glance sent a chill
of horror through the man and as she staggered toward him, half falling,
her lips weakly forming his name Nathaniel leaped to her and caught her
close in his arms.
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