ritten books. To him the land, lying as yet much as it
came from the hands of the Creator, carried more messages and held more
interesting things than any printed pages. Grouse scuttled aside or rose
with a roar of wings, and the boy eyed them regretfully. Once he caught
sight of a coyote, an arrogant, bushy-tailed youngster which, apparently
knowing that he was in a hurry, stood in full view watching him. Once he
stopped short at a momentary glimpse of something in thick bush. But as
he did not see it again, he rode on.

While he still rode in the shadow of the eastern hills, the sun from
behind them struck the face of the western range ten miles or more
across Fire Valley. Behind that again it glinted on peaks still capped
with the snows of the previous winter. The sunshine moved downward to
the valley and eastward across it in a marching swath of gold. In that
clear, thin air to the keen eyes of the boy, peaks and rocks and even
trees miles away were sharply defined. Below him was a lake, pale silver
where the mists that still clung to its surface had parted. Half an hour
later it would take on the wondrous blue of mountain waters. But the boy
did not care for that, nor just then for the great unfolding panorama of
rolling, timber-clad hills, bare, gray peaks and blue sky. He was an
hour late and, as everybody knows, the early morning is the best time to
hunt.

He had intended to enter a pass leading into the hills and turn from it
up a big draw which he knew held blacktail, but he gave up the idea and
turned along the base of the mountain. He was now in a country of
jackpine with huge, scattered, gloomy firs and chumps of cottonwood.
Numerous little spring-fed creeks ran through it, and there were rocky
coulees and small ponds. It was an ideal country for whitetail. There
the boy dismounted, hung his saddle from a tree out of the reach of a
possible porcupine, and put his pony on a rope. He glanced around
mechanically, noting the exact position and registering landmarks. Then
he levered a cartridge into the chamber of his rifle, dropped the hammer
to half cock, tucked the weapon under his arm and struck off parallel
with the base of the mountain.

In motion the impression of awkwardness vanished. He walked with the
peculiar straight-footed, bent-kneed slouch which is the distinctive
mark of the woodsman and moccasin wearer; and is, moreover, extremely
easy because the weight of the body cushions on the natural
sh