h heart was
beating.

The old man had closed his eyes again. And yet the rigid forefinger
remained raised, and the faint smile touched at the corners of his
mouth. Buck Daniels sat lunging forward in his chair, his knees
supporting his elbows, and scowled up at the window with a sort of
sullen terror.

Then Byrne heard it--so small a voice that at first he thought it was
only a part of the silence. It grew and grew--in a sudden burst it was
clear to every ear--the honking of the wild geese!

And Byrne knew the picture they made. He could see them far up in the
sky--a dim triangle of winter grey--moving with the beat of lightning
wings each in an arrowy flight north, and north, and north. Creatures
for sport all the world over; here alone, in all the earth, in the heart
of this mountain-desert, they were in some mysterious wise messengers.
Once more the far discord showered down upon them, died as they rose,
perhaps, to a higher level, and was heard no more.

CHAPTER XX

THE COMING

Then a padding step, light, lighter than the sound of the softest
thought. It was passing near; the faint breeze blew the sound to them,
around them, behind them. Each man felt as if some creature were
stalking him, unseen. Next--it appeared by magic against the blue black
of the night--the head of a great wolf, quite black, shaggy, with
sharply pointed ears. And the eyes stared at them, green eyes with
lights that swirled as the flame jumped in the throat of the lamp. For a
long moment the horror lasted. Then the head, as it had come,
disappeared, and the light, light foot fall, faded away.

Buck Daniels had risen, now. The sound of his whisper made them start.

"I'm going up--to my room--and lock the door--for God's sake--keep--him
away!"

And so he stole soundlessly away, and then they heard the creaks which
announced his progress up the stairs.

Not Buck Daniels alone. In the deadly silence Kate rose to her feet; and
the old man, the invalid--he with the dead body and the living brain,
rose from his couch and stood as erect as a soldier on parade. The
doctor was conscious of repeating to himself, hurriedly, a formula
something like this: "The thing which is coming is human; it cannot be
more than human; as long as it is human it is nothing to fear; the laws
of truth are irrevocably fixed; the laws of science will not change."
Yet in spite of this formula he was deadly cold, as if a wind were
blowing through his naked