To cross that morass safely required a touch on tussocks and an
upbounding aside, a zig-zag exhibition of great strength and knowingness
and recklessness. But it was unreasoning; it was the instinct begotten of
long training and, now, of the absence of all nervousness. Each taut toe
touched each point of bearing just as was required above the quagmire,
and, all unperceiving and uncaring, he fled over dirty death as easily as
he might have run upon some hardened woodland pathway. He did not think
nor know nor care about what he was doing. He was only running away from
the something he had never known before! Why should he be running now? He
had killed things before and not cared and had forgotten. Why should he
care now? But there was the something which made him run. And where was
Oak? Would Oak meet him again and would they hunt together? No, Oak would
not come, and he, this Ab, had made it so! He must run. No one was
following him--he knew that--but he must run!
The marsh was passed, night had fallen, but he ran on, pressing into the
bear and tiger haunted forest beyond. Anything, anything, to make him
forget the strange feeling and the thing which made him run! He plunged
into a forest path, utterly reckless, wanting relief, a seeker for
whatever might come.
In that age and under such conditions as to locality it was inevitable
that the creature, man, running through such a forest path at night, must
face some fierce creature of the carnivora seeking his body for food.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180