Page:Silversheene (1924).djvu/18

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four fascinated and drew him strangely.

He had great powers over the wild creatures, which made him a god among them. The wild beast saw and understood this, so he worshipped afar.

Not only was the man creature who walked on two legs not afraid of fire, and had power to wound his wild brothers from afar off, but he had certain other very mysterious powers. He could come and go on the water like a duck in a strange contrivance made of bark. The brute knew it was bark because he had often smelled it in the night when the man creature was asleep in his hole in the side of the hill. For they all slept in a cave away from the winds and the cold. And their house was feebly lighted in the night by a stone lamp.

From the bark water duck the wild beast knew the smell of this fascinating god whom he worshipped from afar. He could detect this smell more easily than any other in the wilderness and it was the most fearful of all the scents in the woods. Yet it