The air seemed a chilly balm, and the earth, after the
heat of the day, now and again breathed soothingly against him.
The Factor, gathered into the rhythm of it all, dozed off, with his
head upon his arm, and slept.
Fifty yards away, head resting on knees, and with his back to John
Fox, Snettishane likewise slept, gently conquered by the quietude
of the night. An hour slipped by and then he awoke, and, without
lifting his head, set the night vibrating with the hoarse gutturals
of the raven call.
The Factor roused, not with the abrupt start of civilized man, but
with the swift and comprehensive glide from sleep to waking of the
savage. In the night-light he made out a dark object in the midst
of the grass and brought his gun to bear upon it. A second croak
began to rise, and he pulled the trigger. The crickets ceased from
their sing-song chant, the wildfowl from their squabbling, and the
raven croak broke midmost and died away in gasping silence.
John Fox ran to the spot and reached for the thing he had killed,
but his fingers closed on a coarse mop of hair and he turned
Snettishane's face upward to the starlight. He knew how a shotgun
scattered at fifty yards, and he knew that he had peppered
Snettishane across the shoulders and in the small of the back.
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