After he had seen, Ed Hardin came away alone, grim-mouthed. When he entered Arner’s yard, it already was growing dark, the night breeze rustling in the liveoaks overhead. He went to the barn and saddled Arner’s bay mare. Having led her to the front fence, he tied her there and went into the house.
In the hallway, which divided the house through the middle, he paused as he heard in the room beside him the low sobbing of a woman. Then he passed on to the room that had been assigned to him and Alex Rowe. A small kerosene lamp had been lighted and set upon the dresser, and in the light of this he was buckling on a belt holding a broad hunting-knife and a pistol when Alex burst in upon him.
“Ed Hardin,” cried the young man, “what is that mare doin’ at the front fence? Where be you goin’?”
“I’m goin’ ter hunt that beast, Alex.”
“Yer ain’t goin’ ter do that thing, Ed! Yer don’t know what hit is. How--”
“I’m goin’, Alex.”
“But, Ed, hit’s _night_. Wait till daylight. The last two times folks went out on the swamp road at night they was er man killed.”
Broad-shouldered, sparely-made, the big deputy drew himself up to his full height and turned to gaze for a moment at his young friend.
“I’m goin’ now,” he said calmly.
“But, Ed, you heerd what they said ’bout the schooner up in the bayou. Hit’s been layin’ there fer two weeks, ’thout dealin’s with nobody. You heerd what Rensie Bucker, the ole nigger what uster be er sailor, said. He said he paddled up in his dugout by that schooner an’ them folks on board is India folks. He says that in their lan’ they’s strange beasts an’ reptiles, an’ that mebbe they’ve sot one of ’em loose in the swamp, mebbe put hit ter watch the swamp road.”
“Ef hit’s been sot ter watch the swamp road at night,” said Ed, “that’s jes wher I want ter go. I want ter meet it.”
“Wait, Ed. Wait till I git holt of er hoss. I’m goin’ with yer.”
A soft smile played for a moment about Ed Hardin’s grim mouth.
“No, Alex,” he said: “I reckon I’ll go by myse’f.”
As he was untying the mare, those who had returned to the house gathered about him and, as Alex had done, tried to prevent his going off alone into the swamp at night.
But he swung lightly to the saddle and galloped out through the settlement, into the shadows of the giant cypress trees.
* * * * *
The mare was a spirited and nervous animal, and she leaped and shied as she danced among the stagnant pools that lay black in the swamp road.
In thus going out deliberately to use himself as a bait for the Unknown Beast, Ed felt that he could depend largely upon her agility and quickness to prevent being taken unawares by a sudden rush from the darkness. He drew from its holster his heavy Colt’s revolver and thrust it through his belt in front, within convenient reach.
So dark was the black tunnel of the road that he could see no space in front of him, and he let the reins lie slack on the mare’s neck, so that she might be undisturbed in picking her footing. And as he plunged deeper into the swamp, he experienced a lonely boding that was new to him.
Time and again, he had gone fearlessly out alone in the pursuit and capture of desperate men. Now, however, he did not know what nature of creature it was he sought, and he had to invite an attack from the darkness in order to get in touch with it.
The night was murky, almost sticky in its heaviness, and the swamp seemed strangely silent. Only the occasional call of some night bird pierced the stillness. He was familiar with the road, having traveled it frequently, and the places where violence had occurred had been described to him in detail.
A few hundred yards to the left of the road, where he now was riding, the fisherman had met his death. He passed the place where Brandon last had been seen, and, soon after, entered the deeper recess of the swamp where the herder had been snatched into the darkness of death. Plainly, this neighborhood of violence was the creature’s lurking-place.
Suddenly, the mare shied, snorted, and stood quivering, her head turned as though she saw or smelled something at the side of the road. He raised his pistol, which he now held ready cocked in his hand, and fired quickly into the darkness. As he had only one hand on the reins, it was some moments after the report before he could calm the startled animal sufficiently to proceed on his way.
Twice more, at indications of terror from his horse, guided by her forward-pointed ears, Ed Hardin fired into the black shadows at the side of the road, the discharges making lurid flashes in the darkness.
The Unknown Beast evidently was near, following him through the brush--or over the treetops. If it were on the ground, he hoped for the slender chance of killing or wounding it before it had an opportunity to attack.
After each shot, as well as he could for the plunging of the mare, he listened intently for some cry of pain, some movement of the bushes; but the silence of the shadows was unbroken. The strain was nervewracking, and he had a wild desire to whirl the mare about and speed away in mad flight. He could not urge her out of a slow, hesitating walk, and she frequently shied from one side of the road to the other, with those periodic halts of trembling fear.
Then the road ran from beneath the arches of the swamp and passed over a corduroy crossing, bordered on each side by a dense growth of titi. The mare went more quietly now, and Ed began to hope that some of his shots had taken effect. He breathed more freely, now that the branches no longer drooped overhead.
Presently, however, he found himself beneath spreading liveoaks. These, flanking the road on either side, sent their giant limbs horizontally across. He peered from side to side, his eyes straining to penetrate the gloom, each indistinct tree trunk assuming a sinister outline.
Overhead, the trees towered in cavernous depths, and suddenly, with a swish of leaves and branches, out of them dropped a great, dark object!
* * * * *
The frightened mare leaped forward; but the nameless creature alighted behind the saddle.
Hardin snatched out his pistol, only to find that he was unable to use it. For he had been caught in a giant embrace that pinioned his arms to his sides, an embrace against which his own great strength was powerless.
The mare ran desperately, her supple body close to the ground, her graceful neck outstretched. Out from the swamp she sped, crossing a reach of flat country, once heavily covered with pines. The timber long since had been cut, only the stumps remaining, charred by forest fires--hordes of black ghosts crowding down to the edge of the road on both sides.
It was a wild ride for the man, with death perched there behind. The great arms, wound about him, were slowly squeezing the breath from his body, and beneath that embrace he felt his ribs bend inward to the point of cracking. Desperately, he maintained his grip on the saddle with his knees.
Then, just before consciousness would have left him, he raised his legs and flung himself sideways. The saddle slipped under the mare’s belly. Carried by the momentum, but with that crushing grip never relaxing, the man and the terrible creature which held him hurtled through the air.
They struck with a _thud_ against a shattered stump at the side of the road, while the frightened mare sped on. The murderous creature was next the stump and at the impact its hold on Ed Hardin loosened. Having slipped from the great arms, Ed flung himself over and rolled for several feet to one side.
The pistol long since had dropped from his nerveless fingers; but he now quickly drew his hunting-knife. Expecting an immediate attack with fang and claw, he lay on his back, his feet drawn up, very much in the position a cat assumes when defending itself. He knew it would be useless to pit his strength against that of the enormous creature, and the best he could hope for was to ward off an attack with his feet and watch for an opportunity to reach and drive home the knife.
And suddenly it was looming there above him. For an instant it seemed to hesitate, then it backed slowly away. With a quick, halting motion, walking upright like a man, it began to circle about him. Its long arms swung below its knees. A round head was set on a neck so thick and short that it seemed to spring from the shoulders themselves. As it circled about him, Ed turned also, keeping his feet always presented.
Again the creature backed off, up the road. Then it turned and walked slowly away.
For a moment Ed Hardin lay watching it, unwilling to change his position. Then, tentatively, he raised himself to a sitting position.
Suddenly, as if, without looking, the creature divined his movement, it turned about, at a distance of perhaps fifty feet.
And then, with a strangely human shriek of rage, it rushed toward him.
* * * * *
As it came through the gloom, this maddened creature, with its uncouth, hopping run, swinging its long arms from side to side.