The
swishing sound recommenced, and stopped. Then the four fingers of a
hand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced between the bottom
log and the denuded floor. Upon that intruding hand the bowie-knife of
Demorest descended like a flash of lightning. There was no outcry.
Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a pang of admiration for
the stoicism of the unseen trespasser. But the maimed hand was quickly
withdrawn, and as quickly Demorest rushed to the door and dashed into
the outer darkness.
For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by the sudden change. But the
next moment he saw a dodging, doubling figure running before him, and
threw himself upon it. In the shock both men fell, but even in that
contact Demorest felt the tangled beard and alcoholic fumes of Whiskey
Dick, and felt also that the hands which were thrown up against his
breast, the palms turned outward with the instinctive movement of a
timid, defenseless man, were unstained with soil or blood. With an oath
he threw the drunkard from him and dashed to the rear of the cabin.
But too late! There, indeed, was the scattered earth, there the widened
burrow as it had been excavated apparently by that mutilated hand--but
nothing else!
He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the miserable man, although still
retaining a look of dazed terror in his eyes, had recovered his feet
in a kind of angry confidence and a forced sense of injury.
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