“Funny-looking cat,” James Blaine Hawkins commented carelessly. Gary looked up at him surprisedly; saw the direction of his glance, and turned and looked that way with a blank expression of astonishment. “Cat? What cat?” “_That_ cat! Hell, can’t you see that _cat_?” James Blaine Hawkins leaned forward excitedly. Gary’s glance wandered over the cabin floor. Toward Faith, over Faith and beyond Faith. He might have been a blind man for all the expression there was in his eyes. He turned and eyed James Blaine Hawkins curiously. “You mean to say you--you see a _cat_?” he asked solicitously. “Ain’t there a cat?” James Blaine Hawkins half rose from his seat and pointed a shaking finger. “Mean to tell me that ain’t a cat walkin’ over there to the bunk?” Gary looked toward the bunk, but it was perfectly apparent that he saw nothing. “Waddell used to see--a cat,” he murmured regretfully. “There used to be a cat that belonged to a man named Steve Carson, that built this cabin and used to live here. Steve disappeared very mysteriously awhile back. Five years or so ago. Ever since then----” He broke off suddenly. “Really, Mr. Hawkins, maybe I hadn’t better be telling you this. I didn’t think a man of your type would be bothered----” “What about it?” A sallow streak had appeared around the mouth and nostrils of James Blaine Hawkins. “Yuh needn’t be afraid to go on and tell me. If that ain’t a cat----” “There _was_ a cat, a few years back,” Gary corrected himself gently. “There was the cat’s master, too. Now--they say there’s a Voice--away up on the bluff, that calls and calls. Waddell--poor old duffer! He used to see Steve Carson--and the cat. It was, as you say, a funny-looking cat. White, I believe, with black spots and yellowish-brown spots. And half of its face was said to be white, with a blue eye in that side.” Gary leaned forward, his arms folded on the table. His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Is that the kind of a cat you see?” he asked. James Blaine Hawkins got up from the bench as if some extraneous force were pulling him up. His jaw sagged. His eyes had in them a glassy look which Gary recognized at once as stark terror. A cold feeling went crimpling up Gary’s spine to his scalp. James Blaine Hawkins was staring, not at the cat lying curled up on the bunk, but at something midway between the bunk and the door. Gary could see nothing. But he had a queer feeling that he knew what it was that James Blaine Hawkins saw. The eyes of the man followed something to the bunk. Gary saw the cat lift its head and look, heard it mew lazily, saw it rise, stretch itself and hop lightly down. He saw that terrified stare of James Blaine Hawkins follow something to the open doorway. The cat trotted out into the dusky warmth of the starlit night. It looked to Gary as if the cat were following some one--or some _thing_. James Blaine Hawkins relaxed, drew a deep breath and looked at Gary. “Did you see it?” he whispered, and licked his lips.