r
sensation.

It was a shadowy figure yet it moved, arose, held out one hand, and a
bird as large as the fabled roc alighted on the wrist of the
outstretched hand.

A slight breeze sprang up, the white mists from the valley rolled up the
mountainside and drifted away and the man and bird disappeared from
view.

It was long after dark when I reached camp and was greeted by my friend
and guide with "Gol durn your pictur tenderfut, if it hain't tuk you
longer to get a pesky mess of yaller fish than it orter to kill a bar."

"Little wonder," thought I, "that the Wild Hunter used golden bullets in
a land where even the fish's scales seemed to be of the same precious
metal"; but I said nothing as I sat down to clean my "yaller trout."

CHAPTER IX

It was always interesting to me when I could get Pete's theories and his
brand of philosophy on almost any subject and it was my intention that
night at supper to lead up to the apparition I had seen on the cliffs
that day. With a substantial supper tucked away I was in a better frame
of mind to realize that the illusion I had seen was not uncommon in
mountain districts. I recalled that I had read of, and seen pictures of,
a particular illusion of this nature that is often present in the Hartz
Mountains in Germany and I knew full well that the setting sun, the mist
and the atmospheric condition had all contributed to throwing a greatly
enlarged shadow of the real Wild Hunter onto the screen made by the mist
very much as today a motion picture increases the size of the small film
image when it is thrown on the movie screen.

I intended to get Big Pete's idea on the subject but I never did for I
was not adroit enough to steer the conversation in that direction, for
Big Pete seized my first statement and made it a subject for a veritable
lecture.

"There was a smashing lot of those trout up there, Pete. Bet I could
have brought home all I could have carried if I had been a game hog," I
said, as I stirred the fire with a stick and set the coffee pot nearer
the flames to warm a second cup.

"You see, tenderfut, it's like this," he said, "when a man goes out to
kill a deer for the fun of blood-spilling or to get th' poor critter's
head to hang in his shack, he's nothing more than a wolf or butcher;
hain't half as good a man as the one who never shot a deer, but goes
back home and lies about it. The liar hain't harmed nothin' with his
lies. His fairy stories don't hurt