e shelf, with his two comrades only a few feet
away, while the horses and mules were back of them, having withdrawn as
much as they could into the stubbly pines and cedars in order to protect
themselves from the cold wind. Will heard one of them stir now and then,
or draw a deep breath like a sigh, but it merely formed an under note in
the steady whistling of the wind, which at that height seemed to have an
edge of ice, making him shiver in all his wrappings. Nevertheless, he
watched as well as one might under such circumstances, feeling himself
but a mote on the side of a great mountain in all the immensity of the
wilderness.

Surely the hunter was right when he said there was little danger. He did
not know from what point in so much blackness and loneliness could
danger be apprehended, but he believed, nevertheless, that danger was
near. The whistling of the bitter wind seemed to him sinister and
threatening, and yet a wind was only a wind. It must be circumstances
going before that had given it that threat. He knew the mind could be so
prepared by events that it became a sensitive plate, receiving upon its
surface impressions that were, in reality, warnings.

Stronger and shriller grew the wind, and stronger and shriller was its
warning. He had been lying upon his side with his rifle thrust forward,
and now he sat up. Some unknown sense within him had taken cognizance of
a threatening note. Listening intently he heard only the wind, but the
wind itself seemed always to bear a menace on its front.

He rose to his knees, and used all his powers of eye and ear. The
animals did not stir, and the hunter and the Little Giant slept in deep
peace. Yet Will's own pulses were beating hard. He began to denounce
himself as one who took alarm because of the darkness and desolation,
but it did not make his pulses grow quiet.

Still keeping his rifle ready for instant use, he crawled noiselessly
toward the edge of the ledge, which was not more than twenty feet away.
Half the distance, and he stopped suddenly, because his ears had
distinctly brought to him a light sound, as if a pebble had fallen. Will
was not a son of the wilderness by birth, but he was fast becoming one
of its adopted children, making its ways second nature, and, when the
light note of the falling pebble was registered upon his ear, he
flattened himself upon the ground, thrusting forward a little the muzzle
of his rifle. It is doubtful if the keen eyes of a tra