Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/100

 A sudden shift of wind drove the campfire smoke straight to him and he sneezed loudly twice. The girl started up in sheer terror at this sound just in time to see a gray shape disappear.

“Flash!” she called after him. “Flash! Come, Flash. Come here.”

Flash halted. It had been long since he had heard any one speak his name. From centuries of being sheltered and protected by man, brutality and the lust to kill have been refined out of civilized woman to an extent that is easily apparent to the animal world, and Flash sensed that he had less to fear from the female of the human species than from the male.

Animal estimates of men are not formed by reasoning but through the composite impression they receive from eye, ear and nose; of this impression, the strongest factor is that of scent. Flash’s eyes told him that this girl was the one he had met before. Her tones were stirringly familiar, yet his nose denied all this. She was as alluring as ever but instead of radiating the bubbling vitality and happiness he associated with her he now sensed an air of weariness and mental depression.

This had the effect of adding a fresh pang to