That was all they knew.

I would rather trust a bear than a deer." The Indian's words were few, but they drew a picture all too realistic.
The next time Rolf heard the far sound of a deer fight, it brought back the horror of that hopeless fight in the snow, and gave him a new and different feeling for the antler-bearer of the changing mood.
It was two weeks after this, when he was coming in from a trip alone on part of the line, when his ear caught some strange sounds in the woods ahead; deep, sonorous, semi-human they were.

Strange and weird wood-notes in winter are nearly sure to be those of a raven or a jay; if deep, they are likely to come from a raven.
"Quok, quok, ha, ha, ha-hreww, hrrr, hooop, hooop," the diabolic noises came, and Rolf, coming gently forward, caught a glimpse of sable pinions swooping through the lower pines.
"Ho, ho, ho yah--hew--w--w--w" came the demon laughter of the death birds, and Rolf soon glimpsed a dozen of them in the branches, hopping or sometimes flying to the ground.

One alighted on a brown bump.

Then the bump began to move a little.