Across the hollow sloped a considerable area where all trees were dead and still standing--a melancholy sight.

Beyond, and far round and down to the left, opened up a slope of spruce and bare ridge, where a few cedars showed dark, and then came black, spear-tipped forest again, leading the eye to the magnificent panorama of endless range on range, purple in the distance.
Wade found patches of grass where beds had been recently occupied.
"Mountain-sheep, by cracky!" exclaimed the hunter.

"An' fresh tracks, too!...

Now I wonder if it wouldn't do to kill a sheep an' tell Belllounds I couldn't find any elk." The hunter had no qualms about killing mountain-sheep, but he loved the lordly stags and would have lied to spare them.

He rode on, with keen gaze shifting everywhere to catch a movement of something in this wilderness before him.