And at that instant a strange cry came tingling up to her through the unfathomable depths of forest. It was such a sound as does not catch the consciousness immediately, beginning too dim and faint even to recognize as sound, and at first she found herself doubting its reality. The least rustle of the thickets beside her, the faintest stir of the distant wind drowned it out. Yet with such gradual encroachments as the hour hand makes on the face of the watch, it swelled and grew until all disbelief was dead, and all other sensation transcended. The deep silence of the primeval forest alone had enabled her to detect it at first, but its quality of obscurity slowly passed away. Soon she had begun to have some idea of the quality of its tones. It was slowly, steadily gaining, and the only inference could be that whatsoever made the sound was coming toward her at an incredible pace,—something that ran behind her and cried out in beastial savagery. A frantic flood of thoughts swept over her: blind hopes that the cool depths of her subconsciousness refused to accept. Perhaps the cries were of some wilderness hunter on the trail of deer,—a trail that closely coincided with her own. In a moment it would be just a thing to laugh at and forget. But even her own prayers, her own unquenchable spirit of optimism could not make the truth untrue. The grim fact slowly grew and strengthened that whatever ran behind her was on her own trail, that she was being remorselessly hunted through the still aisles of the forest. The wild cries were louder now, evolving from vague and distant rumblings to prolonged and savage bays, ferocious as any wilderness cry she had ever heard. It sounded like a _pack_,—that terrible organization that knows no fear and against which not even the stately elk can stand. The cries had a strange exultant quality, a sense of power, and at the same time the hunting lust that can be discerned in the yell of the wolf pack in their first strength of autumn. Yet this was no autumn. The leaves were yet unfallen. The wolves were still mated, or else ran in pairs. And a great fear began to creep like a poison through her veins. And ever the chorus grew louder, swelling into a veritable thunder that seemed to shudder, with long, undulating waves of sound, through the hushed air. It seemed to her that she heard the distant pound of running feet on the trail. And now she no longer gave thought to what these hunters might be. It no longer mattered. She only knew that some new and terrible peril was leaping forth upon her, a ferocious enemy that would contest her effort to reach the safety of the fire. The sheep broke into a run, and sobbing she sped after them. CHAPTER XVI