Dull, though, as were usually the people of the clan, the strange and mysterious would sometimes arouse as it alarmed them. There was one time when even the bravest of the hunters feared to venture deeply into the forest at night, especially toward a little lake to the west where the urus were accustomed to feed and beside which, on the north, was a stretch of forest with dim winding paths beneath the shadow of its dense foliage and many pools fringed with the rich grass the urus liked. Concerning this forest strange tales began to go about in the clan. There was a ghostlike monster there--perhaps the thing that made the wind bring pestilence and death as it had once in the past--a great white shape that moved about in the dark alleys of the forest, and which was not a thing to be wisely faced by man. More than one of the hunters declared he had seen the white thing, and the people dreaded to enter the woods in search of fruit or nuts and roots. Over all this I puzzled much. What could the white thing be? After much persuasion, I induced Leuk, one of the hunters, to go with me at night to learn, if we might, what was the mystery. It was with difficulty that I secured his company, but, in truth, I did not greatly care to go alone. There are many things of which we do not know. It was somewhat of a dark night on which we went, but I knew that the moon would rise in time and that we could see about us more distinctly. It did not take us long to reach the lake, and there we waited, hidden in a thicket by its shore. From the forest near us came many sounds. There were the “pad-padding” along of the smaller hunting creatures, calls of the night birds and sometimes the snarl of the prowling wood-cat, but above these and continuous was another noise, one of crashing of branches in the thickets as some large body passed through them, and the thud of ponderous feet and frequent husky gruntings. I knew that the urus were feeding in the glades. Very near us was an opening, or rather a sort of indentation, in the forest, and across this in the dimness we could see dark shadows passing, though we could not distinguish what they were. After a time these moving shadows disappeared. And then, all at once, loomed up a great white shape, passing, without a sound it seemed, across the glade! Leuk sank shudderingly to the ground, and I, with a feeling in my belly and throat I did not like, stood gazing at where the ghostly thing had disappeared. We did not speak; we but waited in wonder and, it may be, with not a little apprehension; and as we thus waited the moon rose, and through the open space to the eastward poured her light upon the lake and its surroundings, making all nearly light as day. And then, almost at the moment, emerged with stately tread from the forest into the glade again, a majestic snow-white urus!