Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/79

 fabled beast, the basilisk, Mayfield would have died speedily on his stump, the life burnt out of him by the intensity of their gaze.

The other pair of watching eyes, concealed in a clump of broom grass about fifteen feet from the myrtle thicket, were not less alert, not less observant, not less hostile. But they were not so intense, not so fixed and steady. There crept into them now and then an expression which might have denoted both impatience and expectancy. Unlike the eyes in the myrtle thicket, their gaze was not immovably fastened upon the hunter. From time to time they seemed to forget him momentarily, and at such times they searched eagerly all the open spaces of the wood within range of their vision.

Evidently, to the owner of these eyes, the dun form which had suddenly appeared on the pine stump was not the only thing that mattered. There were other things, other possibilities to be remembered and to be watched for. The owner of these eyes, one might have guessed, though keenly interested in watching and studying the strange still shape on the pine stump, was at the same time awaiting with growing impatience some tremendously important event which was due to happen soon.

If Mayfield had suddenly divined the nature of that expected event, if he had become aware