Brent
shuddered but Halloway struck a match just then for his dead pipe under
the protection of his coat lapel and in the brief flare Brent saw that
his eyes were agleam, feral and animal-like, and that his lips were
wolfishly drawn back from his teeth.
"This is elemental!" Halloway burst out suddenly. "I glory in it.
I've been sitting here drunker than any moonshine guzzler back there at
that tavern to-night. Drunk on the wild wine of the elements--drunk
from the skulls of Valhalla. Great God, I love it!"
Brent rose at last and sought refuge under the insufficient roof of one
of the shacks, for a down-pour had come with the wind and in key with
all the extravagance of the night's mood, it was a cloud-burst.
The city man tossed restlessly and once looking out across the stretch
of the rafted logs, he saw a single figure stripped to the skin in the
sheeted down-pour of cold rain. He saw it only when the lightning
flashed with the spectral effect of beauty. It stood straight with
back-flung shoulders and head upturned into the rain like some wild
high-priest of storm worship.
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