Hunter had been advised to climb Lowder Hill from its farther side, so on reaching it he walked in a great circle around its base, through a narrow, wooded valley that separated it from Kerachan Hill. As he passed along this valley, he was struck by its utter peace and quiet. The smaller forest creatures were frightened away by the sound of his coming, but once he glimpsed the vague dun shape of a deer slipping through the trees in the distance, and now and then startled groups of birds burst up through the trees at his approach, noisily discussing him in disparaging terms, in their flight. The busy, shouting, bellowing world seemed inconceivably remote, in that tranquil spot.

The sun swung higher and higher while he pushed his way forward. And in the world that seemed so very far, in Leadanfoot and London and New York and Peking, other men were pushing their way forward, in their particular groove in life, scheming for disks of metal and slips of paper, for the admiration of their fellows, for riches or fame or knowledge. A vast mass of tiny conspirators, each intent on his own plots, each sublimely confident of the importance of his especial business and its outcome.

And hidden in those quiet hills into which Hunter advanced was that which was to upset all of those minute conspiracies like little houses of cards, a door through which was to come a menacing terror unknown to man, so that presently, through this world, and worlds above and beyond, would run death, and confusion, and an ancient dread.…

-2-

The sun was near its greatest height when Hunter came to the farther side of Lowder Hill, and the rude path that twisted up that side. He stared at it rather doubtfully, for the hill seemed very steep and the day was almost half gone. Then, with a shrug, he was about to step forward to the path when the sound of a step behind him made him wheel in surprise.

A strange figure was walking toward him, a small, middle-aged man whose clothes were dirty and torn by briars. He was hatless, and on his pink, round, spectacled face was an expression of dazed wonder. He came forward until he was within a few yards of the astonished Hunter, then stopped and regarded him mildly.

“Not Powell,” he whispered, softly, confidentially. “Not—”

He ceased speaking suddenly, looked around with a certain surprise, then sank to the ground in a dead faint.

In a moment Hunter was by the man’s side, applying his vague ideas of first aid. He got his pocket flask between the man’s teeth, and a little brandy down his throat, which almost instantly pulled him back to consciousness. The man lay there, his eyes sweeping over Hunter’s face, then asked, quite unexpectedly, “What time is it?”