His hands moved forward and grasped his rifle. Then he began to slip
away from the opening and into the forest, not by walking nor altogether
by crawling, but by a curious, noiseless, gliding motion, almost like
that of a serpent. Always he clung to the shadows where his shifting
body still blended with the dark, and as he advanced other primitive
instincts blazed up in him. He was a hunter pursuing for the first time
the highest and most dangerous game of all game and the thrill through
his veins was so keen that he shivered slightly. His chin was projected,
and his eyes were two red spots in the night. All the while his comrades
by the fire, even the trained foresters, slumbered in peace, no warning
whatever coming to their heavy heads.
The boy reached the wall of the woods, and now his form was completely
swallowed up in the blackness there. He lay a while in the bushes,
motionless, all his senses alert, and for the third time the jarring
note came to his ears. The maker of it was on his right, and, as he
judged, perhaps a couple of hundred yards away. He would proceed at once
to that point.
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