Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/125

 When he awoke dusk had come to the jungle. Where scrubby, stunted live oaks spread their wide branches under the pines it was already black night; and all around him in the gloom the little red dog heard sibilant, mysterious whisperings—the eerie music of the sea winds sifting through acres of palmetto fronds. A chuck-will's-widow cried shrilly in the blackness, another and another answered. Down from the air above the feathery pine tops floated the loud, guttural "quok-quok-quok" of a squadron of black-crowned night herons going forth to their fishing, and presently a homing blue heron sent down his harsh, hoarse call.

Then, as the breeze lulled, fell silence, deep and absolute; and in the grim clutch of it, with the blackness growing ever blacker, fear came into Rusty's heart again—fear and a great longing for Mat Norman, his master.

The longing abode with him, but the fear passed. It was not in his nature to be afraid; and the hunger, which the willet eggs had only temporarily appeased, would not let him lie idle in the darkness, appalled by the jungle's dreadful silences, startled by its inexplicable sounds. Soon his nose gave him tidings which made him forget all other matters in a new quest for food—a quest to which he could bring a ripe experience.

His nose told him—that there were rabbits about