Ere turning the canoe towards home, Cyrus drove it a few feet nearer to
shore, again warily listening for any further sound of game. Just then
another wild, whooping scream cleft the night air; and, on looking
towards the bank, Neal beheld his owlship, who had finished the
squirrel, seated on an aged windfall,[1] one end of which dipped into
the water.
[Footnote 1: A forest tree which has been blown down.]
The gray bird on the gray old trunk formed a second thrilling midnight
picture, but at this moment young Farrar was in no mood for studying
effects. He felt rather unstrung by his recent emotions; and, though he
was by no means an imaginative youth, he actually took it into his head
half seriously that the whooping, hooting thing was taunting him with
making a failure of the jacking business. Without pausing to consider
whether the owl would furnish meat for the camp or not, he let fly at
him suddenly with his rifle.
The fate of that ghostly, big-eyed creature will be forever one of those
mysteries which Neal Farrar would like to solve.
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