He tensed himself for another attack, hugging the ground closely as he watched and waited, but no attack came.

He could hear the flutter and wheeze of his maimed adversary, and slowly he drew himself back--still facing the scene of battle--until in a farther patch of gloom he turned once more to his business of following the trail of Jolly Roger McKay.
There was no mark of bravado in his advance now.

If he had possessed an over-growing confidence, Gargantua's attack had set it back, and he stole like a shifty fox through the night.

Driven into his brain was the knowledge that all things were not afraid of him, for even the snapping beaks and floating gray shapes to which he had paid but little attention had now become a deadly menace.

His egoism had suffered a jolt, a healthful reaction from its too swift ascendency.