Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/210

 damp.

I awoke soon. I was too bruised, and sore, and sick in mind and body, to sleep. There is a doleful, dreary bird that calls in this country in the night, in the most mournful tone you can imagine. It is a sort of white-headed owl; not large, but with a very hoarse and coarse note. One of these birds was calling at intervals down the gorge to the right, and another answered on the other side so faintly I could just hear it. An answer would come just as regularly as this one called, and that would sound even more doleful and dreary still, because so far and indistinct. The moon hung cold and crooked over head, and fell in flakes through the trees like snow.

The Doctor put out his two hands, pushed back the blanket, and raised his head. He looked to the left in the gorge as if he contemplated a spring in that direction. I think that, at last, he had summoned up courage to make a desperate effort to escape.

He drew up his legs slowly, as if gathering his muscles for a leap. My heart stood still* All seemed clear. I could see the nerves of his face quiver in the moon.

He turned his head to the officer, not six feet away across the fire, and looked squarely into the ugly, sullen muzzles of three lifted pistols.

The Doctor sank back with a groan. His face was white as the moon that shone down upon it through the quills above his head.

The officer and his men exchanged glances, arid lay down without a word. The Prince was possibly