the herd, mostly cows. A magnificent bull, with
wide-spreading antlers, and black head and shoulders and gray hind
quarters, stalked out from the herd, and stood an instant, head aloft,
splendidly significant of the wild. Then he trotted into the woods, his
antlers noiselessly spreading the green. Others trotted off likewise.
Wade raised his rifle and looked through the sight at the bull, and let
him pass. Then he saw another over his rifle, and another. Reluctant and
forced, he at last aimed and pulled trigger. The heavy Henry boomed out
in the stillness. Fox dashed down with eager barks. When the smoke
cleared away Wade saw the opposite slope bare except for one fallen elk.

Then he returned to his horses, and brought them back to where Fox
perched beside the dead quarry.

"Well, Fox, that stag'll never bugle any more of a sunrise," said Wade.
"Strange how we're made so we have to eat meat! I'd 'a' liked it
otherwise."

He cut up the elk, and packed all the meat the horse could carry, and
hung the best of what was left out of the reach of coyotes. Mounting
once more, he ascended to the rim and found a slope leading down to the
west. Over the basin country below he had hunted several days. This way
back to the ranch was longer, he calculated, but less arduous for man
and beast. His pack-horse would have hard enough going in any event.
From time to time Wade halted to rest the burdened pack-animal. At
length he came to a trail he had himself made, which he now proceeded to
follow. It led out of the basin, through burned and boggy ground and
down upon the forest slope, thence to the grassy and aspened uplands.
One aspen grove, where he had rested before, faced the west, and, for
reasons hard to guess, had suffered little from frost. All the leaves
were intact, some still green, but most of them a glorious gold against
the blue. It was a large grove, sloping gently, carpeted with yellow
grass and such a profusion of purple asters as Wade had never seen in
his flower-loving life. Here he dismounted and sat against an
aspen-tree. His horses ruthlessly cropped the purple blossoms.

Nature in her strong prodigality had outdone herself here. Pale white
the aspen-trees shone, and above was the fluttering, quivering canopy of
gold tinged with green, and below clustered the asters, thick as stars
in the sky, waving, nodding, swaying gracefully to each little autumn
breeze, lilac-hued and lavender and pale violet, and all the