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All was very quiet, not even a hoot-owl coming to disturb them. But about four o'clock Snap awoke with a start and sat bolt upright. Something had awakened him, but he could not tell what. He aroused Shep. "What is it, Snap?" "That is what I want to know, Shep." "What do you mean?" "Something just woke me up. Did you notice anything?" "I did not."
As they rode on deep down in a hollow between mighty hedges, a loud hail seemed to come from the road on the hillside, "Hoi, hoi!" which was followed by another on the opposite slope, but no one stirred. The call of the hoot-owl was too familiar to the Coombeland men to deceive.
Then he strolled aft, and we slipped forward. "Oh, I know you're aboard," he called out, and I could see him listen intently after he had spoken. It reminded me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming cry, for the stir of its frightened prey. But we did not fir, and we moved only when he moved.
The distant sound of a hoot-owl startled Flea from her tears. It was a familiar sound to her and came as a call from a friend. Creeping into the low woodshed, Flea took up a bundle of fagots from the corner, and, closing the door on Snatchet that he might not follow her, mounted the hill with the wood under her arm. Once at the top of the lane, she opened her lips and echoed the hoot.
Now they heard the distant baying of house-dogs, now the doleful call of the chuck-will's-widow; and once Mary's blood turned, for an instant, to ice, at the unearthly shriek of the hoot-owl just above her head. At length they found themselves in a dim, narrow road, and the negro stopped. "Dess keep dish yeh road fo' 'bout half mile an' you strak 'pon the broad, main road.
But it was with the utmost difficulty that he suppressed a shout. Then he laughed softly, for the crackling twigs told him he had seen a creature of flesh and blood, no ghost. He chuckled again and far in the dark a hoot-owl seemed to answer him and his company was a source of comfort. Yet, here was, after all, another problem: What was this white-coated creature?
Capital H. An' to-night the ol' man has got the door locked an' he's two games behind an' he's sore as a hoot-owl an' he says that anybody as breaks in on his play is No, I can't say it; not in the presence of a lady. There's times when the ol' man is so awful vi'lent he's purty near vile about it. Get me?" "Guy Little, you just stand aside!"
Tonight it was more pleasant than ever, and when darkness fully settled down it was even thrilling. We talked about bears. Then Hal told of mountain-lions and the habit they have of creeping stealthily after hunters. There was a hoot-owl crying dismally up in the woods, and down by the edge of the river bright-green eyes peered at us from the darkness.
I know, for I was created by two prominent Wicked Witches." "And I was hatched out of an egg just like any other hoot-owl," replied Lisa. "But that doesn't prove anything. In any event, Glinda the Good said there was a drought happening here. But clearly she was mistaken. I don't think droughts are natural in any part of Oz, anyway." "They aren't," agreed Ozma.
I heard Sam demand of the huddled bundle as he lifted it off the wall. It was attired in scanty night-drawers and a short coat, and shivered as it stood, first on one foot and then on the other. "I ain't a-going to stay in no country with a hoot-owl, Sam. I'm going to somewhere that a lady lives at, too." And the manful little voice broke as the bunch shivered up against Sam's legs.
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