He trotted around the circle cast by
the fire and looked out into the darkening shadows. It was plain that
Shep's instincts were developing fast; he was ambitious to hunt. But
sure in my belief that he was afraid of the black night and would stay
in camp, I went to bed.
The Navajo who slept with me snored serenely and Moze growled in his
dreams; the wind swept through the pines with an intermittent rush.
Some time in the after part of the night I heard a distant sound.
Remote, mournful, wild, it sent a chill creeping over me. Borne
faintly to my ears, it was a fit accompaniment to the moan of the wind
in the pines. It was not the cry of a trailing wolf, nor the lonesome
howl of a prowling coyote, nor the strange, low sound, like a cough,
of a hunting cougar, though it had a semblance of all three. It was
the bay of a hound, thinned out by distance, and it served to keep me
wide awake. But for a while, what with the roar and swell of the wind
and Navvy's snores, I could hear it only at long intervals.
Still, in the course of an hour, I followed the sound, or imagined so,
from a point straight in line with my feet to one at right angles
with my head. Finally deciding it came from Shep, and fancying he was
trailing a deer or coyote, I tried to go to sleep again.
In this I would have succeeded had not, all at once, our captive lions
begun to growl.
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