The Man of the Forest | Page 4

stood up round and bare,
rimmed bright gold in the last glow of the setting sun. Then, as the fire
dropped behind the domed peak, a change, a cold and darkening blight,
passed down the black spear-pointed slopes over all that mountain
world.
It was a wild, richly timbered, and abundantly watered region of dark
forests and grassy parks, ten thousand feet above sea-level, isolated on
all sides by the southern Arizona desert -- the virgin home of elk and
deer, of bear and lion, of wolf and fox, and the birthplace as well as the
hiding-place of the fierce Apache.
September in that latitude was marked by the sudden cool night breeze
following shortly after sundown. Twilight appeared to come on its
wings, as did faint sounds, not distinguishable before in the stillness.
Milt Dale, man of the forest, halted at the edge of a timbered ridge, to
listen and to watch. Beneath him lay a narrow valley, open and grassy,
from which rose a faint murmur of running water. Its music was
pierced by the wild staccato yelp of a hunting coyote. From overhead in
the giant fir came a twittering and rustling of grouse settling for the
night; and from across the valley drifted the last low calls of wild

turkeys going to roost.
To Dale's keen ear these sounds were all they should have been,
betokening an unchanged serenity of forestland. He was glad, for he
had expected to hear the clipclop of white men's horses -- which to hear
up in those fastnesses was hateful to him. He and the Indian were
friends. That fierce foe had no enmity toward the lone hunter. But there
hid somewhere in the forest a gang of bad men, sheep-thieves, whom
Dale did not want to meet.
As he started out upon the slope, a sudden flaring of the afterglow of
sunset flooded down from Old Baldy, filling the valley with lights and
shadows, yellow and blue, like the radiance of the sky. The pools in the
curves of the brook shone darkly bright. Dale's gaze swept up and
down the valley, and then tried to pierce the black shadows across the
brook where the wall of spruce stood up, its speared and spiked crest
against the pale clouds. The wind began to moan in the trees and there
was a feeling of rain in the air. Dale, striking a trail, turned his back to
the fading afterglow and strode down the valley.
With night at hand and a rain-storm brewing, he did not head for his
own camp, some miles distant, but directed his steps toward an old log
cabin. When he reached it darkness had almost set in. He approached
with caution. This cabin, like the few others scattered in the valleys,
might harbor Indians or a bear or a panther. Nothing, however,
appeared to be there. Then Dale studied the clouds driving across the
sky, and he felt the cool dampness of a fine, misty rain on his face. It
would rain off and on during the night. Whereupon he entered the
cabin.
And the next moment he heard quick hoof-beats of trotting horses.
Peering out, he saw dim, moving forms in the darkness, quite close at
hand. They had approached against the wind so that sound had been
deadened. Five horses with riders, Dale made out -- saw them loom
close. Then he heard rough voices. Quickly he turned to feel in the dark
for a ladder he knew led to a loft; and finding it, he quickly mounted,
taking care not to make a noise with his rifle, and lay down upon the
floor of brush and poles. Scarcely had he done so when heavy steps,

with accompaniment of clinking spurs, passed through the door below
into the cabin.
"Wal, Beasley, are you here?" queried a loud voice.
There was no reply. The man below growled under his breath, and
again the spurs jingled.
"Fellars, Beasley ain't here yet," he called. "Put the hosses under the
shed. We'll wait."
"Wait, huh!" came a harsh reply. "Mebbe all night -- an' we got nuthin'
to eat."
"Shut up, Moze. Reckon you're no good for anythin' but eatin'. Put
them hosses away an' some of you rustle fire-wood in here."
Low, muttered curses, then mingled with dull thuds of hoofs and strain
of leather and heaves of tired horses.
Another shuffling, clinking footstep entered the cabin.
"Snake, it'd been sense to fetch a pack along," drawled this newcomer.
"Reckon so, Jim. But we didn't, an' what's the use hollerin'? Beasley
won't keep us waitin' long."
Dale, lying still and prone, felt a slow start in all his blood -- a thrilling
wave. That deep-voiced man below was Snake Anson, the worst and
most dangerous character of the region;