He carried a long gun, the butt-end of which was hidden under his jacket, while the barrel, pointed towards the ground, glittered in the moonlight.

Pressing the weapon to his side, he attentively examined the square shadows cast by the piles of timber.

The ground looked like a chess-board, with black and white squares clearly defined by alternate patches of light and shade.

The sawyers' tressels in the centre of the plot threw long, narrow fantastic shadows, suggesting some huge geometrical figure, upon a strip of bare grey ground.

The rest of the yard, the flooring of beams, formed a great couch on which the light reposed, streaked here and there with the slender black shadows which edged the different pieces of timber.