they had halted was still thick with yellowish-green summer
foliage, mingled with the darker evergreen of pine and fir. Oven-like
canyons in the long flanks of the mountain seemed still to glow with the
heat of yesterday's noon; the breathless air yet trembled and quivered
over stifling gorges and passes in the granite rocks, while far at their
feet sixty miles of perpetual summer stretched away over the winding
American River, now and then lost in a gossamer haze. It was scarcely
ripe October where they stood; they could see the plenitude of August
still lingering in the valleys.

"I've seen Thomson's Pass choked up with fifteen feet o' snow earlier
than this," said Rawlins, answering Hale's gaze; "and last September the
passengers sledded over the road we came last night, and all the time
Thomson, a mile lower down over the ridge in the hollow, smoking his
pipes under roses in his piazzy! Mountains is mighty uncertain; they
make their own weather ez they want it. I reckon you ain't wintered here
yet."

Hale was obliged to admit that he had only taken Eagle's Court in the
early spring.

"Oh, you're all right at Eagle's--when you're there! But it's like
Thomson's--it's the gettin' there that--Hallo! What's that?"

A shot, distant but distinct, had rung through the keen air. It was
followed by another so alike as to seem an echo.

"That's over yon, on the North Ridge," said the ostler, "about two miles
as the crow flies and five by the trail. Somebody's shootin' b'ar."

"Not with a shot gun," said Clinch, quickly wheeling his horse with a
gesture that electrified them. "It's THEM, and the've doubled on us! To
the North Ridge, gentlemen, and ride all you know!"

It needed no second challenge to completely transform that quiet
cavalcade. The wild man-hunting instinct, inseparable to most
humanity, rose at their leader's look and word. With an incoherent and
unintelligible cry, giving voice to the chase like the commonest hound
of their fields, the order-loving Hale and the philosophical Rawlins
wheeled with the others, and in another instant the little band swept
out of sight in the forest.

An immense and immeasurable quiet succeeded. The sunlight glistened
silently on cliff and scar, the vast distance below seemed to stretch
out and broaden into repose. It might have been fancy, but over the
sharp line of the North Ridge a light smoke lifted as of an escaping
soul.

CHAPTER II

Eagle's Court, one of