had touched the heights with its magic wand. And the
forest seemed a temple in which man might worship nature and life
rather than steal through the dells and under the arched aisles like a
beast of prey. The green-and-gold leaves of aspens quivered in the
glades; maples in the ravines fluttered their red-and-purple leaves.
The needle-matted carpet under the pines vied with the long lanes of
silvery grass, alike enticing to the eye of man and beast. Sunny rays
of light, flecked with dust and flying insects, slanted down from the
overhanging brown-limbed, green-massed foliage. Roar of wind in the
distant forest alternated with soft breeze close at hand. Small
dove-gray squirrels ran all over the woodland, very curious about Jean
and his dog, rustling the twigs, scratching the bark of trees,
chattering and barking, frisky, saucy, and bright-eyed. A plaintive
twitter of wild canaries came from the region above the treetops--first
voices of birds in their pilgrimage toward the south. Pine cones
dropped with soft thuds. The blue jays followed these intruders in the
forest, screeching their displeasure. Like rain pattered the dropping
seeds from the spruces. A woody, earthy, leafy fragrance, damp with
the current of life, mingled with a cool, dry, sweet smell of withered
grass and rotting pines.

Solitude and lonesomeness, peace and rest, wild life and nature,
reigned there. It was a golden-green region, enchanting to the gaze of
man. An Indian would have walked there with his spirits.

And even as Jean felt all this elevating beauty and inscrutable spirit
his keen eye once more fastened upon the blood-red drops Queen had
again left on the gray moss and rock. His wound had reopened. Jean
felt the thrill of the scenting panther.

The sun set, twilight gathered, night fell. Jean crawled under a
dense, low-spreading spruce, ate some bread and meat, fed the dog, and
lay down to rest and sleep. His thoughts burdened him, heavy and black
as the mantle of night. A wolf mourned a hungry cry for a mate. Shepp
quivered under Jean's hand. That was the call which had lured him from
the ranch. The wolf blood in him yearned for the wild. Jean tied the
cowhide leash to his wrist. When this dark business was at an end
Shepp could be free to join the lonely mate mourning out there in the
forest. Then Jean slept.

Dawn broke cold, clear, frosty, with silvered grass sparkling, with a
soft, faint rustling of falling aspen