No patter of flying feet.

Jane saw Lassiter stiffen.
"Fay--oh--Fay!" Jane almost screamed.
The leaves quivered and rustled; a lonesome cricket chirped in the grass, a bee hummed by.

The silence of the waning afternoon breathed hateful portent.

It terrified Jane.

When had silence been so infernal?
"She's--only--strayed--out--of earshot," faltered Jane, looking at Lassiter.
Pale, rigid as a statue, the rider stood, not in listening, searching posture, but in one of doomed certainty.