Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/13



HE tyrant was coming. He was coming like a tyrant—announced by the tribute of thousands. A mile away that tribute might have been heard; a throbbing, reverberant, surging roar that filled the air and quelled all lesser noises.

In the heart of a myrtle thicket in the swamp woods, a big whitetail buck, lying half-asleep on a bed of dry dead leaves, heard the tumult and flicked an ear carelessly. He knew what it was, and he dozed on dreamily, listening, yet scarcely conscious of the distant turmoil.

A female gray fox, trailing a rabbit along a narrow bush-grown peninsula extending far into a wilderness of marsh, halted and crouched close to the ground as that air-shaking hubbub rolled swiftly down upon her. She was directly in its path, and, lover of silence that she was, for an instant the clamor startled and disconcerted her. But her fright was only momentary. Her sensitive ears, accus-