The night was still, cold, starlit, and black in the shadows.

A lonesome coyote barked, to be answered by a wakeful hound.

Wade halted at his porch, and lingered there a moment, peering up at the gray old peak, bare and star-crowned.
"I'm sorry for the old man," muttered the hunter, "but I'd see Jack Belllounds in hell before I'd let Columbine marry him." * * * * * October first was a holiday at White Slides Ranch.

It happened to be a glorious autumn day, with the sunlight streaming gold and amber over the grassy slopes.

Far off the purple ranges loomed hauntingly.
Wade had come down from Wilson Moore's cabin, his ears ringing with the crippled boy's words of poignant fear.
Fox favored his master with unusually knowing gaze.