A impolite skull-cap of goat-skin safe his head from the sunlight. From underneath this fell a scant edge of stained and dirty-white hair. A visor, ingeniously made of a wide leaf, shielded his eyes, and from lower than this he peered on the approach of his toes at the path. His beard, which must have been snow-white yet which confirmed a similar weather-wear and camp-stain as his hair, fell approximately to his waist in an excellent tangled mass. approximately his chest and shoulders hung a unmarried, mangy garment of goat-skin. His legs and arms, withered and thin, betokened severe age, in addition to did their sunburn and scars and scratches betoken lengthy years of publicity to the weather. The boy, who led the best way, checking the fervour of his muscle mass to the gradual growth of the elder, likewise wore a unmarried garment—a ragged-edged piece of bear-skin, with a gap within the center by which he had thrust his head. He couldn't were greater than twelve years previous. Tucked coquettishly over one ear was once the freshly severed tail of a pig. in a single hand he carried a medium-sized bow and an arrow. On his again was once a quiverful of arrows. From a sheath striking approximately his neck on a thong, projected the battered deal with of a searching knife. He was once as brown as a berry, and walked softly, with virtually a catlike tread. In marked distinction together with his sunburned pores and skin have been his eyes—blue, deep blue, yet willing and sharp as a couple of gimlets. They looked as if it would bore into aft approximately him in a fashion that was once recurring. As he went alongside he smelled issues, besides, his distended, quivering nostrils sporting to his mind an never-ending sequence of messages from the skin global. additionally, his listening to used to be acute, and have been so expert that it operated instantly. with out wakeful attempt, he heard the entire moderate sounds within the obvious quiet—heard, and differentiated, and labeled those sounds—whether they have been of the wind rustling the leaves, of the buzzing of bees and gnats, of the far away rumble of the ocean that drifted to him purely in lulls, or of the gopher, slightly below his foot, shoving a pouchful of earth into the doorway of his gap. unexpectedly he grew to become alertly annoying. Sound, sight, and scent had given him a simultaneous caution. His hand went again to the outdated guy, touching him, and the pair stood nonetheless. forward, at one aspect of the pinnacle of the embankment, arose a crackling sound, and the boy's gaze was once mounted at the tops of the agitated trees. Then a wide endure, a grizzly, crashed into view, and also stopped without warning, at sight of the people. He didn't like them, and growled querulously. Slowly the boy geared up the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bowstring taut. yet he by no means got rid of his eyes from the undergo. The outdated guy peered from below his eco-friendly leaf on the hazard, and stood as quietly because the boy. For a number of seconds this mutual scrutinizing went on; then, the endure betraying a growing to be irritability, the boy, with a flow of his head, indicated that the previous guy needs to step other than the path and cross down the embankment. The boy undefined, going backward, nonetheless retaining the bow taut and prepared.