Adams Conquests 291 



a mournful requiem. This instrument was to him 

 something special, new, and highly mysterious — an 

 invisible creature which crooned in the calm and 

 gave out shrieks of terror and rage in the tempest. 

 He crouched and listened to its weird cries in the 

 night. When the morning dawned he emerged from 

 his lair and scanned the surrounding forest for sign 

 of life or motion; stole a few steps softly, and 

 tested the air with ear and nostril; his quick eyes 

 glanced up the trees, from their roots to their tops, 

 and rested with piercing gaze upon the shadows. 

 Then came a subdued moan: surely the object of 

 his search, whether a god or beast, had been 

 wounded in the battle and was complaining of its 

 pain. The tone assured him, at least, that it was 

 grieved, not angry. On he stole again, keeping 

 now the bole of one great tree and now that of 

 another, and then a clump of bushes, between him 

 and the object of his search. He was startled now 

 with the snort and rush and pounding gallop of a 

 fleeing moose, and amused again at the imperti- 

 nence of an inquisitive squirrel, and interested in 

 the whirring flight of a pheasant, whose descent he 

 marked with his eye. His courage rose. The 

 object of his quest was wounded and must be dying, 

 and he advanced upon it with confidence. He could 

 hear it, but it was invisible — surely it was one of the 

 gods left by his companions alone there to die. He 

 had no sympathy with the wounded god; on the 

 contrary, he was possessed of a keen desire to take 



