Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then stood gazing
into the perfumed June night, first in the direction of the woods on her
land, then toward the Limberlost. Its outline was so dark and forbidding
she shuddered and went down the garden, following the path toward the
woods, but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and her courage
fled. The knowledge that in her soul she was now glad Robert Comstock
was at the bottom of it made a coward of her, who fearlessly had mourned
him there, nights untold. She could not go on. She skirted the back of
the garden, crossed a field, and came out on the road. Soon she reached
the Limberlost. She hunted until she found the old trail, then followed
it stumbling over logs and through clinging vines and grasses. The heavy
boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches whipped her face and
pulled her hair. But her eyes were on the sky as she went straining into
the night, hoping to find signs of a living creature on wing.

By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something she thought
near the right size. She had no idea where she was, but she stopped,
lighted a lantern and hung it as high as she could reach. A little
distance away she placed the second and then the third. The objects
came nearer and sick with disappointment she saw that they were bats.
Crouching in the damp swamp grasses, without a thought of snakes or
venomous insects, she waited, her eyes roving from lantern to lantern.
Once she thought a creature of high flight dropped near the lard oil
light, so she arose breathlessly waiting, but either it passed or it was
an illusion. She glanced at the old lantern, then at the new, and was on
her feet in an instant creeping close. Something large as a small bird
was fluttering around. Mrs. Comstock began to perspire, while her hand
shook wildly. Closer she crept and just as she reached for it, something
similar swept past and both flew away together.