It could be, he almost felt, nothing material, and yet, though they did not move now, he knew the horses were also listening.

That had its meaning, for man cannot measure his keenest senses with those of the beasts of the field.

The little breeze awoke again, and shook fantastic harmonies out of the shivering trees, and one horse stamped.
The other wheeled and snorted, and Alton sprang back into the tent, as somewhere in the bushes there commenced a sound that suggested the snarling of a great cat.

It was possibly unfortunate he was not a trifle less prompt, because otherwise he might have noticed something slightly unusual in the sound.
As it was, however, he fell over Okanagan Tom, who being a very similar man to him, and not as yet wholly awake, asked no questions but gripped him silently, and proceeded to crush the breath out of him.

Alton was sinewy, but he was almost choking before he freed one hand, and drove it into a tender portion of his assailant's frame.