The fear that came to him was that of the young world,--fear without recompense, direct and primitive fear that grew on him like a sickness. It was the fear that the deer knew as they crept down their dusky trails at night; it was the fear of darkness and silence and pain and heaven knows what cruelty that would be visited upon him by those terrible, rending fangs and claws. It was the fear that can be heard in the pack song in the dreadful winter season, and that can be felt in strange overtones, in the sobbing wail of despair that the coyote utters in the half-darkness. He had been afraid for his life every moment he was in the hands of the Turners. He knew that if he survived this night, he would have to face death again. He had no hopes of deliverance altogether. But the Turners were men, and they worked with knife blade and bullet, not rending fang and claw. He could face men bravely; but it was hard to keep a strong heart in the face of this ancient fear of beasts. The Killer seemed disturbed and moved slowly along the edge of the moonlight. Bruce could trace his movements by the irregularity in the line of shadows. He seemed to be moving more cautiously than ever, now. Bruce could not hear the slightest sound. For an instant Bruce had an exultant hope that the bear would continue on down the edge of the forest and leave him; and his heart stood still as the great beast paused, sniffing. But some smell in the air seemed to reach him, and he came stealing back. In reality, the Killer was puzzled. He had come to this place straight through the forest with the expectation that food--flesh to tear with his fangs--would be waiting for him. Perhaps he had no actual memory of killing the calf the night before. Possibly it was only instinct, not conscious intelligence, that brought him back to what was left of his feast the preceding night. And now, as he waited at the border of the darkness, he knew that a strange change had taken place. And the Killer did not like strangeness. The smell that he had expected had dimmed to such an extent that it promoted no muscular impulse. Perhaps it was only obliterated by a stranger smell,--one that was vaguely familiar and wakened a slow, brooding anger in his great beast's heart. He was not timid; yet he retained some of his natural caution and remained in the gloom while he made his investigations. Probably it was a hunting instinct alone. He crept slowly up and down the border of moonlight, and his anger seemed to grow and deepen within him. He felt dimly that he had been cheated out of his meal. And once before he had been similarly cheated; but there had been singular triumph at the end of that experience.