path that they were following was crossed by other paths or gave off branches to right or left. Before the light grew too dim to see, she had abundant evidence of the cause of those mysterious rustlings. Glancing down the side paths that they crossed, she caught many glimpses of the wild things that walked the shadowy tunnels of the canebrake. Once it was a troop of deer in a path opening to her right; once it was a wild black cow; twice she saw foxes; and once Almayne himself uttered a low exclamation of surprise as Nunda the Moon-Face stopped suddenly with a snort, and a huge dim shape reared itself suddenly upward in the trail ahead.
"Zooks, what a bear!" Almayne muttered, and held his rifle on the beast while Nunda capered under him.
For a moment Jolie was sick with fear. Reared on its hind legs, looming doubly gigantic in the dusk, the creature seemed to fill the opening ahead of them. For perhaps a quarter of a minute it stood thus, and Lachlan, urging his horse forward, crowded past Jolie, his rifle ready. Then the bear dropped on all fours, turned deliberately and ambled off, disappearing at once around a bend of the winding path.
Almayne laughed quietly. "By my soul," he said to Lachlan, "that one was as big as any I ever saw in the Blue Mountains."
As suddenly as they had entered it they emerged from the labyrinth of the canes. Above them now towered a mixed growth of cypress, pine, and gum,
