Yet I noticed that there were no other signs of animal life in the valley. Not a rabbit popped up in the grass; the trees were fresh with foliage, but no birds flew among the boughs. All around us was silence, save for the soft crush of our own footsteps and our breathing, now quickened by our exertions. I called Redfield’s attention to this silence and absence of life, and we stopped again and listened but heard nothing. The night was without wind; I could not see a leaf on the trees stir, the air felt close and heavy, and Redfield told me that my face was without color; I had noticed that fact already in his. Fifty yards farther and we came to the open space in which we had seen the herd, and we felt sure that it was not far beyond us, for the heads of the animals had been turned south and we believed they had continued to move in that direction as they nibbled the grass. We paused to take another look at our rifles, our ardor for the chase rising to the highest, leaving us no thought of anything but to kill. I had never before hunted such big game and I felt now the thrill which leads men to risk their own lives that they may take those of the most dangerous wild beasts. The twilight had deepened somewhat, and though of a grayer tone in the valley, where mists seemed to be collected and hemmed, it was not dense enough to hinder our pursuit. Redfield paused suddenly and put his hand upon my shoulder though I had seen them as soon as he. The herd was grazing in the edge of a little grove a few hundred yards ahead of us, but within plain sight. This closer view confirmed our count from the mountain-side that they were about fifty in number, and admiration mingled with our wonder, for they were magnificent in size, true monarchs of the wilderness, grazing, unseen by man, while the rush of civilization passed around their mountains and pressed on, hundreds of miles into the Farther West. Their figures stood out in the gray twilight, huge and somber, surpassing in size anything that I had imagined. I felt a joy that I was one of the two whose fortune it was to find such game, a proud anticipation of the trophies that I would show. I saw the same exhilaration in Redfield’s eyes, and again we spoke to each other of our fortune. I held up a wet finger, and finding that the wind was blowing from the herd toward us we resumed our advance, sure that we could approach near enough for rifle shot. The herd was noiseless, like ourselves, the huge beasts seeming to step lightly as they cropped the grass, the scraping of the bushes as they pushed through them not reaching our ears. Again the sense of silence, of desolation oppressed me. The grayness over everything, the trees, the grass, the mountains, Redfield, myself even, the unreality of the place and our situation seized me and clung to me, though I strengthened my will and went on, the zeal of the chase directing all else.