292 Hunting the Grisly 



gether all day, and returned to camp toward 

 evening. 



On nearing it they saw, hardly to their as- 

 tonishment, that the lean-to had been again 

 torn down. The visitor of the preceding day 

 had returned, and in wanton malice had tossed 

 about their camp kit and bedding, and de- 

 stroyed the shanty. The ground was marked 

 up by its tracks, and on leaving the camp it 

 had gone along the soft earth by the brook, 

 where the footprints were as plain as if on 

 snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail, 

 it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing 

 was, it had walked off on but two legs. 



The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a 

 great heap of dead logs, and kept up a roar- 

 ing fire throughout the night, one or the other 

 sitting on guard most of the time. About 

 midnight the thing came down through the 

 forest opposite, across the brook, and stayed 

 there on the hillside for nearly an hour. They 

 could hear the branches crackle as it moved 

 about, and several times it uttered a harsh, 

 grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sin- 

 ister sound. Yet it did not venture near the 

 fire. 



In the morning the two trappers, after dis- 

 cussing the strange events of the last thirty- 



