Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/49



HE day was hot and windless with an unclouded sky, and memories of the dreadful yesterday  but deepened the sense of to-day's serenity.

In flooding sunlight the woodlands basked and steamed,  and a great stillness brooded over all the wilderness. Long before any sound audible to human ears disturbed the noonday hush, a bobcat sunning on a  log in a glade to which no trail led, pricked ears, rose,  glanced over-shoulder with a snarl, and—of a sudden—was no more there.

Perhaps two minutes later a succession of remote crashings began to be heard, the sound made by  some heavy body forcing a way through the underbrush. Soon a man broke into the clearing and reeled to a seat on the log, shuddering uncontrollably in all his limbs.

He was a young man and had been personable. Just now his face was crimson with congested blood and streaked with sweat and grime; his lips were  cracked and swollen, his eyes haggard, his hands  bleeding. Woods equipment he had none beyond a 31