.

It was not his first taking of human life, and while he would have
shuddered at the deed a year ago he felt no such sensation now; they
were merely dangerous wild animals that had crossed his path, and he had
put them out of it in the proper way; his feeling was that of the hunter
who slays a grizzly bear or a lion, only he had slain two.

He stood looking at them, and save for the rustling of the young grass
under the gentle western wind the wilderness was silent and at peace.
The sun was shooting up higher and higher and a vast golden light hung
over the forest, gilding every leaf and twig. Henry Ware turned at last
and sped swiftly and silently to the south, still thrilling with
exultation over his deed, and the sequel that he knew would quickly
come. But in the few brief minutes his nature had reverted another and
further step toward the primitive.

When he had gone a half mile in his noiseless flight he stopped, and,
listening intently, heard the faint echo of a long-drawn, whining cry.
After that came silence, heavy and ominous. But Henry only laughed in
noiseless mirth. All this he had expected. He knew that the larger party
to which the two warriors belonged would find the bodies, with hasty
pursuit to follow after the single cry. That was why he lingered. He
wanted them to pursue, to hang upon his trail in the vain hope that they
could catch him; he would play with them, he would enjoy the game
leading them on until they were exhausted, and then, laughing, he would
go on to the south at his utmost speed.

A new impulse drove him to another step in the daring play, and, raising
his head, he uttered his own war cry, a long piercing shout that died in
distant echoes; it was at once a defiance, and an intimation to them
where they might find him, and then, mirth in his eyes, he resumed his
flight, although, for the present, he chose to keep an unchanging
distance between his pursuers and himself.

That party of warriors may have pursued many a man before and may have
caught most of them, but the greatest veteran of them all had never hung
on the trail of such another annoying fugitive. All day he led them in
swift flight toward the south, and at no time was he more than a little
beyond their reach; often they thought their hands were about to close
down upon him, that soon they would enjoy the sight of his writhings
under the fagot and the stake, but always he slipped away at the fatal
moment, and their sav