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.