Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/190

172 in a frenzied effort to save his life; but already the leafy bows, like the tendrils of some great amphibian, had whipped around his legs. He fell, struggling; and then a curious darkness, streaked with flame, dropped down upon him.

An hour later he found himself lying on the still hillside, knowing only a great wonderment. At first his only impulse was to go back to sleep. He did n't understand the grayness that had come upon the mountain world, his own strange feeling of numbness, of endless soaring through infinite spaces. But he was a mountain man, and that meant he was schooled, beyond all things, to keep his self-control. He made himself remember. It was the cruelest work he had ever done, and it seemed to him that his brain would shiver to pieces from the effort. Yes—he had been cutting wood on the hillside, and the shadows had been long. He had been wondering whether or not they should go down to the valleys.

He remembered now: the last blow and the rolling log. He tried to turn his head to look up to the hill.

He found himself wholly unable to do it. Something wracked him in his neck when he tried to move. But he did glance down. And