catch the sound of a voice.

It was the voice he wanted most of all, and when this did not come
he choked back a whimper in his throat, and went down to the
creek, and waded through it, and came up cautiously behind the
cabin, his eyes and ears alert and his loosely jointed legs ready
for flight at a sign of danger. He wanted to set up his sharp
yipping signal for the girl, but the menace of the axe choked back
his desire. At the very end of the cabin, where the wood-vine grew
thick and dense, Peter had burrowed himself a hiding-place, and
into this he skulked with the quickness of a rat getting away from
its enemies. From this protecting screen he cautiously poked forth
his whiskered face, to make what inventory he could of his chances
for supper and a safe home-coming.

And as he looked forth his heart gave a sudden jump.

It was the girl, and not the man who was using the axe today. At
the big wood-pile half a stone's throw away he saw the shimmer of
her brown curls in the sun, and a glimpse of her white face as it
was turned for an instant toward the cabin. In his gladness he
would have leaped out, but the curse of a voice he had learned to
dread held him back.

A man had come out of the cabin, and close behind the man, a
woman. The man was a long, lean, cadaverous-faced creature, and
Peter knew that the devil was in him as he stood there at the
cabin door. His breath, if one had stood close enough to smell it,
was heavy with whiskey. Tobacco juice stained the corners of his
mouth, and his one eye gleamed with an animal-like exultation as