On every side towered the immense peaks of one of the loftiest spurs of the grandest mountain chain of America.

The crests resembled piles of blackness, with the stars gleaming behind them, while he, an insignificant atom, stood with gun by his side in one of the tiny hollows, as if to guard against attack from the sleeping monsters.
As is always the case, the stillness of the vast solitude seemed unlike silence, for a low, deep murmur was ever brooding in the air, varied now and then by the soft voice of some waterfall, borne across the vasty depths by an eddy in the gentle wind.

Once the bark of a wolf sounded so sharp and clear that the youth started and looked to one side, expecting to see the animal steal forward from the gloom, but a moment's reflection told him the brute was a mile or more distant.

Then, some time later, a mournful, wailing cry rose and fell from some remote point.

He suspected that that, too, came from the throat of a wolf, but he was not sure.
Just a touch of homesickness came over Jack Dudley, and he felt lonely for the first time since leaving home.