"Andre Norton - Operation timesearch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

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project on Sunday morning as a favor to Les Wilson, to
take some good shots of the mound to go with the article
Les was writing. Shots--his hands were empty! The camera?
He must have lost it back there when it happened. What had
happened?

Ray dropped his head between his hands. He fought a battle
with primitive panic and tried to think logically. But how
can one think logically about something such as this? One
minute standing in a sane, ordinary world-the next being
here. And where was here?

Slowly he got to his feet, thrusting his twitching hands into
the pockets of his jacket. Go back. He half turned to face
that silent density of forest and knew that he could not go in
there again, not yet. His heart began to thump heavily when
he thought of it. Somehow this open land seemed the lesser
of two evils. So he trudged on, to find a little later a break
in the plain. Below was a narrow gully that housed a stream,
and around that grew tall brush and saplings.

As he sought a path down the steep side, there was a
crashing in the brush below. Out of that green thicket,
straight at the almost perpendicular slope. hurtled a dark
shape. Sharp hoofs pawed frantically at the wall, bringing
down soil and stones. Then, appearing to realize there was
no climbing it, the creature, with a toss of its antlered head,
turned to face its hunters.

Ray clutched at the grass of the verge to keep from sliding
over. The hunted animal was directly below him, head low,
breathing in labored snorts. But he could not believe it was
real. Elk, if this huge monster could be an elk, did not run
wild in southern Ohio. It had an antler spread of more than
six feet and was far
taller than Ray-as out of proportion as the forest
trees.
From the brush leaped shaggy-coated wolfish beasts.
Avoiding the reaching scoop of the elk's antlers, the
first lunged for the animal's foreleg, clearly no novice
at this wicked game. They made a running fight,
dashing in to slash and then speeding away before the
larger animal could well defend itself.
Ray was roused from his absorption in the battle by a
shout. The hail drew one of the hounds momentarily
out of the fight. It answered with a sharp bark. In a