Raften was somewhat taken aback by this outburst, especially as he found all the company against him.  He had often laughed at Granny de Neuville’s active hatred against him when he had done her nothing but good.  It never occurred to him that he was acting a similar part.  Most men would have been furious at the disrespectful manner of their son, but Raften was as insensitive as he was uncowardly.  His first shock of astonishment over, his only thought of Sam was, “Hain’t he got a cheek!  My! but he talks like a lawyer, an’ he sasses right back like a fightin’ man; belave I’ll make him study law instid of tooth-pullin’.”

The storm was over, for Caleb’s wrath was of the short and fierce kind, and Raften, turning away in moral defeat, growled:  “See that ye put that fire out safe.  Ye ought all to be in yer beds an’ aslape, like dacint folks.”

“Well, ain’t you dacint?” retorted Sam.

Raften turned away, heeding neither that nor Guy’s shrill attempt to interpolate some details of his own importance in this present hunt—­“Ef it hadn’t been for me they wouldn’t had no axe along, Mr. Raften”—­but William had disappeared.

The boys put out the fire carefully and made somewhat silently for camp.  Sam and Yan carried the Coon between them on a stick, and before they reached the teepee they agreed that the carcass weighed at least eighty pounds.

Caleb left them, and they all turned in at once and slept the sleep of the tired camper.

XXIII

The Banshee’s Wail and the Huge Night Prowler

Next day while working on the Coon-skin Sam and Yan discussed thoroughly the unpleasant incident of the night before, but they decided that it would be unwise to speak of it to Caleb unless he should bring up the subject, and Guy was duly cautioned.

That morning Yan went to the mud albums on one of his regular rounds and again found, first that curious hoof-mark that had puzzled him before, and down by the pond album the track of a very large bird—­much like a Turkey track, indeed.  He brought Caleb to see them.  The Trapper said that one was probably the track of a Blue Crane (Heron), and the other, “Well, I don’t hardly know; but it looks to me mighty like the track of a big Buck—­only there ain’t any short of the Long Swamp, and that’s ten miles at least.  Of course, when there’s only out it ain’t a track; it’s an accident.”

“Yes; but I’ve found lots of them—­a trail every time, but not quite enough to follow.”

That night after dark, when he was coming to camp with the product of a “massacree,” Yan heard a peculiar squawking, guttural sound that rose from the edge of the pond and increased in strength, drawing nearer, till it was a hideous and terrifying uproar.  It was exactly the sound that Guy had provoked on that first night when he came and tried to frighten the camp.  It passed overhead, and Yan saw for a moment the form of a large slow-flying bird.