ht I'd left off wasting thoughts
on the subject. You see"--he dexterously roped a horse, and once more
his splendid sanity was turned to gold by his imagination--"I expect
in many growed-up men you'd call sensible there's a little boy
sleepin'--the little kid they onced was--that still keeps his fear
of the dark. You mentioned the dark yourself yesterday. Well, this
experience has woke up that kid in me, and blamed if I can coax the
little cuss to go to sleep again! I keep a-telling him daylight will
sure come, but he keeps a-crying and holding on to me."

Somewhere far in the basin there was a faint sound, and we stood still.

"Hush!" he said.

But it was like our watching the dawn; nothing more followed.

"They have shot that bear," I remarked.

He did not answer, and we put the saddles on without talk. We made no
haste, but we were not over half an hour, I suppose, in getting off with
the packs. It was not a new thing to hear a shot where wild game was in
plenty; yet as we rode that shot sounded already in my mind different
from others. Perhaps I should not believe this to-day but for what I
look back to. To make camp last night we had turned off the trail, and
now followed the stream down for a while, taking next a cut through the
wood. In this way we came upon the tracks of our horses where they had
been galloping back to the camp after their fright. They had kicked up
the damp and matted pine needles very plainly all along.

"Nothing has been here but themselves, though," said I.

"And they ain't showing signs of remembering any scare," said the
Virginian.

In a little while we emerged upon an open.

"Here's where they was grazing," said the Virginian; and the signs were
clear enough. "Here's where they must have got their scare," he pursued.
"You stay with them while I circle a little." So I stayed; and certainly
our animals were very calm at visiting this scene. When you bring a
horse back to where he has recently encountered a wild animal his ears
and his nostrils are apt to be wide awake.

The Virginian had stopped and was beckoning to me.

"Here's your bear," said he, as I arrived. "Two-legged, you see. And he
had a hawss of his own." There was a stake driven down where an animal
had been picketed for the night.

"Looks like Ounces," I said, considering the Footprints.

"It's Ounces. And Ounces wanted another hawss very bad, so him and
Pounds could travel like gentlemen should."

"But Pounds