Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/216

208 the darkness. Sometimes he would open his lips and shout,—and for an instant they would draw back. They were afraid of that wild cry of his, but they were more afraid of the flint dagger that lay at his side. Ah, they died quickly—with a scream and a howl—when the Death Flint went into them. It was a good thing to see, but it also filled the heart with fear. He laughed and exulted when he remembered how it was even quicker in its stroke than the leap of a wolf.—But most of all the watchful circle feared the camp fire. They could not rub the wood and strike the flame: in this he was master, ruler and monarch of the earth! Cry-in-the-night might kill him in a fair fight, but still he could not build a fire. The dreamer always felt a great wave of exultation.

One night he dreamed that the fire burned almost down, and the circle drew close. He wakened from his doze and shouted at them none too soon. And a strange, wild cry from his own lips wakened Hugh, in the sheep camp of the twentieth century, from his dream. He had cried out in his sleep,—a hoarse, wild, savage cry that left him curiously awed. And the coyote that had crept close to the flank of the flock slipped quickly back into the forest.

Hugh got up, stood a moment in the gleam of the late September moon, then piled more wood upon the fire. The circle of twin lights was a reality to-night. The days of drought had