Maybe it was a trick of the rising moon.

He got up where the footing was good, stood, glanced at the tree again. Definitely something weird going on there. The whole thing was glowing.

He looked down in front of him. His heart stilled.

Something stared back at him from fifty feet away. It had a head the size of a bushel basket. Its eyes and teeth shown in the tree light. Especially its teeth. Never had he seen so many sharp teeth, or so big.

It started toward him.

His feet would not move.

He looked around wildly, saw Tully and Timmy headed away from the tree at a dead run.

He looked forward again as the monster began its leap, its jaws opening to snap at his head. He hurled himself backward. As the monster arced after him a blue bolt from the tree smacked it aside as a man's hand swats a flying insect.

Smeds landed hard, but hard did not slow him a step. He took off running and never looked back.

"I saw it, too," Old Man Fish said, and that put the quietus on Tully trying to make like Smeds was imagining things. "Like he said, it was as big as a house. Like a giant three-legged dog. The tree zapped it. It ran away."

"Three-legged dog? Come on. What was it doing?"

Smeds said, "It was trying to dig something up. It was sniffing and pawing the ground just like a dog trying to dig up a bone."

"Damn it to hell! Complications. Why does there always have to be complications? That for sure means it'll take longer than I thought. But we don't got no time to waste. Sooner or later somebody else is going to get the same idea I did."

"Don't get in no hurry," Fish said. "Take your time and do it right. That is, if you want to live long enough to enjoy being rich."