The Red Fox communicated with spirits, had visions and
superhuman powers of locomotion--stepping mysteriously from the
bushes, people said, to walk at the traveller's side and as
mysteriously disappearing into them again, to be heard of in a few
hours an incredible distance away.
"I've been watchin' ye from up thar," he said with a wave of his
hand. "I seed ye go up the creek, and then the bushes hid ye. I
know what you was after--but did you see any signs up thar of
anything you wasn't looking fer?"
Hale laughed.
"Well, I've been in these mountains long enough not to tell you,
if I had."
The Red Fox chuckled.
"I wasn't sure you had--" Hale coughed and spat to the other side
of his horse. When he looked around, the Red Fox was gone, and he
had heard no sound of his going.
"Well, I be--" Hale clucked to his horse and as he climbed the
last steep and drew near the Big Pine he again heard a noise out
in the woods and he knew this time it was the fall of a human foot
and not of a hickory nut. He was right, and, as he rode by the
Pine, saw again at its base the print of the little girl's foot--
wondering afresh at the reason that led her up there--and dropped
down through the afternoon shadows towards the smoke and steam and
bustle and greed of the Twentieth Century.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49