if he did, he
wouldn't believe me. Maybe nobody will.... All the same, Snake Anson
won't get that girl."

With these last words Dale satisfied himself of his own position, and
his pondering ceased. Taking his rifle, he descended from the loft and
peered out of the door. The night had grown darker, windier, cooler;
broken clouds were scudding across the sky; only a few stars showed;
fine rain was blowing from the northwest; and the forest seemed full of
a low, dull roar.

"Reckon I'd better hang up here," he said, and turned to the fire. The
coals were red now. From the depths of his hunting-coat he procured a
little bag of salt and some strips of dried meat. These strips he laid
for a moment on the hot embers, until they began to sizzle and curl;
then with a sharpened stick he removed them and ate like a hungry hunter
grateful for little.

He sat on a block of wood with his palms spread to the dying warmth of
the fire and his eyes fixed upon the changing, glowing, golden embers.
Outside, the wind continued to rise and the moan of the forest increased
to a roar. Dale felt the comfortable warmth stealing over him, drowsily
lulling; and he heard the storm-wind in the trees, now like a waterfall,
and anon like a retreating army, and again low and sad; and he saw
pictures in the glowing embers, strange as dreams.

Presently he rose and, climbing to the loft, he stretched himself out,
and soon fell asleep.

When the gray dawn broke he was on his way, 'cross-country, to the
village of Pine.

During the night the wind had shifted and the rain had ceased. A
suspicion of frost shone on the grass in open places. All was gray--the
parks, the glades--and deeper, darker gray marked the aisles of the
forest. Shadows lurked under the trees and the silence seemed consistent
with spectral forms. Then the east kindled, the gray lightened, the
dreaming woodland awoke to the far-reaching rays of a bursting red sun.

This was always the happiest moment of Dale's lonely days, as sunset
was his saddest. He responded, and there was something in his blood that
answered the whistle of a stag from a near-by ridge. His strides were
long, noiseless, and they left dark trace where his feet brushed the
dew-laden grass.

Dale pursued a zigzag course over the ridges to escape the hardest
climbing, but the "senacas"--those parklike meadows so named by Mexican
sheep-herders--were as round and level as if they had been made by man
in beautifu