ls. There never would be any. He was as far
from all that as though he had taken flight to the moon. There was no
sound save the whispering rush of the wind that blew over the bare
mountain top. He was above the pines and he could only faintly hear
the murmur of their branches. Below him the world lay hushed, silent
with the silence of far distances. The shadows that lay on the slope
and far canyons moved like ghosts across the tumbled wilderness.

For a minute the immensity of silence and blue distance lulled his
thoughts again with the feeling of security and peace. He breathed
deep, his nostrils flared like a thoroughbred horse, his face turned
this way and that, his eyes drinking deep, satisfying draughts of a
beauty such as he had never before known. His lips were parted a
little, half smiling at the wonderful kindness of fate, that had
picked him up and set him away up here at the top o' the world.

He glanced downward, to his right. There went two objects--three, he
counted them a moment later. He stepped inside, snatched up the
telescope and focussed it eagerly on the slow-moving, black specks.
Why, there went Hank Brown and the fireman, Ed somebody, and the pack
horse with Ed's bedding lashed on its back. For perhaps a mile he
watched them going down through the manzanita and buck brush toward
the massed line of balsam firs that marked the nearest edge of the
heavy timber line.

So that was the trail that led up to his eyrie! He marked it well,
thinking that it might be a good plan to keep an eye on that trail, in
case an officer came looking for him here.

He watched Hank and Ed go down into the balsam firs. Dark shadows
crept after them down the slope to the edge of the thicket where they
had disappeared.

He watched the shadows until they gave him a vague feeling of
discomfort and loneliness. He turned away and looked down into the
bottom of the mountain's cup. The lake lay darkling there, hooded with
shadows like a nun, the snow banks at the edge indicating the band of
white against the calm face. It looked cold and lonesome down there;
terribly cold and lonesome.

Mount Lassen, when he sent a comfort-seeking glance that way, sent up
a spurt of grayish black smoke with a vicious suddenness that made him
jump. With bulging eyes he watched it mount higher and higher until he
held his breath in fear that it would never stop. He saw the column
halt and spread and fall....

When it was over he became co