Already he was lurking near its entrance.
Just why he had to "lurk" at this particular juncture Grant could not probably have told.

There was not the slightest necessity for lurking.
There were no windows in the side of the house toward him, and no one was visible about the place, but he knew what he had read, and he knew that the savages of the South Sea islands were always addicted to lurking just previous to springing upon their unsuspecting victims, and he was bound to lurk and do it thoroughly.

His manner of lurking consisted, before he reached the clearing fence, in crouching very low and creeping along in a most constrained and uncomfortable manner, occasionally dropping to the ground slowly and with utter noiselessness and rising again with equal caution.

All this time the face of the young man wore what he conceived to be an expression of most bloody purpose craftily concealed.

Upon reaching the fence, he shot his head above it, and withdrew it with lightning-like rapidity, frightening almost into convulsions, in her nest, a robin whose home was between the rails in the immediate vicinity.