Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/108

 absence, was whistling and coaxing from the door in the hope that he would hear and come back to her, but there was no answering whine from the inky blackness under the trees and at last she decided that he had gone back to Moran.

Loneliness clutched her with an icy hand. She sat by the fire, knowing she would not sleep until dawn lifted the shadows from the canyon. The vast silence seemed freighted with unknown dangers. She almost prayed for some sound to break it. Then it came! And her supplication was instantly transformed into an earnest prayer that she might never hear that awful cry again.

She did not know what it was—except that it was made by some terrible beast of prey. It carried to her the same sensation as if she had scratched her finger-nails across the rough surface of a sand rock.

It sounded again, this time close at hand, filling the canyon with its volume. The cry was charged with all the aching misery and loneliness of the ages.

A sudden bump at the door startled her horribly. It was followed by an eager whine and a furious scratching. She sprang to the door and let Flash in, barring it shut once more the instant he crossed