The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: into the ground. He had seen an object lighter than the trees, darker than the
gray background. Again, that strange sense of the nearness of something
thrilled him.
Moments, passed--to him long as hours. He saw a tall fern waver and tremble. A
rabbit, or perhaps a snake, had brushed it. Other ferns moved, their tops
agitated, perhaps, by a faint breeze. No; that wavering line came straight
toward him; it could not be the wind; it marked the course of a creeping,
noiseless thing. It must be a panther crawling nearer and nearer.
Joe opened his lips to awaken his captors, but could not speak; it was as if
his heart had stopped beating. Twenty feet away the ferns were parted to
disclose a white, gleaming face, with eyes that seemingly glittered. Brawny
 The Spirit of the Border |