branches above delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward
the east. To its sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor
of many a tender four-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger
to the cruel, drooping jowl.

But steadfastly it kept on its way, strangely ignoring the cravings
of appetite that at another time would have sent the rolling,
fur-clad muscles flying at some soft throat.

All that night the creature pursued its lonely way, and the next
day it halted only to make a single kill, which it tore to fragments
and devoured with sullen, grumbling rumbles as though half famished
for lack of food.

It was dusk when it approached the palisade that surrounded a large
native village. Like the shadow of a swift and silent death it
circled the village, nose to ground, halting at last close to the
palisade, where it almost touched the backs of several huts. Here
the beast sniffed for a moment, and then, turning its head upon
one side, listened with up-pricked ears.

What it heard was no sound by the standards of human ears, yet
to the highly attuned and delicate organs of the beast a message
seemed to be borne to the savage brain. A wondrous transformation
was wrought in the motionless mass of statuesque bone and muscle
that had an instant before stood as though carved out of the living
bronze.

As if it had been poised upon steel springs, suddenly released, it
rose quickly and silently to the top of the palisade, disappearing,