Jackson Gregory

“ A sound which was at once like the call of some wild thing, some forest creature in distress, and yet like the cry of no animal Sheldon had ever heard. He strained his ears to hear. It was gone, sinking into the silence. And yet he had heard and his blood was tingling.
He snatched up his rifle and ran downstream, dodging behind trees as he went, pausing now and then to peer through the early light, hurrying on again.
“This time, if it is you, Mr. Wild Man,” he muttered, “I’ll be the one who does the creeping up on you.” ”

“ It was so human, and yet not human, he thought. Less than human, more than human—which? Inarticulate, wordless, a bubbling cry of fear, or of physical suffering? The call was gone, sinking as it had sunk before, and again he ran on, his pulses bounding.
With sudden abruptness, before he was aware of it, he had shot out of the timbered land and upon the edge of the little blue lake he had looked down upon yesterday afternoon. Not a hundred paces from him the breeze-stirred ripples of the lake were lapping upon the sandy shore. ”

“ Carrying the trailing bearskin, still warm from the touch of her body, he turned again to the right, trudging on stubbornly along the arm of the lake. There was no particular reason why he should carry the bearskin. But on he went with it, a trophy of the chase. And in his heart was as stubborn a determination as had ever grown up in that stubborn stronghold. He’d find her, he’d get the explanation of this madness, if it was the last thing in the world he ever did. ”