The man spoke true. The twilight was falling over Smoky Land. The sun was set, the tall pines seemed to darken above them, the dusk grew and deepened between the distant trunks. The immeasurable silence of the mountain night, broken by such little sounds as only accentuate the hush, was deepening about them. Hugh had no answer at first. For once no words were at his lips, and it was a good and portentous sign. He stood listening. Perhaps because the visit of the camp-robber had been an impulse to his imagination, perhaps only because the effect of his last drink was dying within him, some little portion at least of the age-old magic of the wilderness twilight was going home to him. Now that his guide’s voice died away, he was a little startled by the vastness of the silence. Far and wide through the forest the wild creatures were starting forth on their night’s business. But they moved with stealth. Hugh had an instant’s dim realization that thickets moved and rustled in the ultimate reaches of hearing; that dim shadows wavered so far distant that he could not be sure of them. The wilderness forces were coming to life. He lifted his face. As usual in the twilight hour, the faintest breath of wind came slipping, light as a deer-tread itself, from the further mountains. He saw the two long ridges that enclosed his particular part of the plateau, and the last light of day gleamed on their tall, white, snow-laden peaks. These were the high Rockies; sentinel mountains grand and austere. These mountains looked just at hand in the daylight, but now in the gathering gloom they seemed to be receding into the infinite distance. The attention of Hugh Gaylord was not usually held by mere scenic beauty, but to-night, for a lone, long instant, he felt vaguely stirred. Then a faint, sharp sound reached him through the growing silence. It came from an amazing distance, and but for the fact that all his senses had been unusually alert he would not have discerned it at all. All that was left of it was a faint prick in the eardrums,—a noise that a beetle might make in the leaves. “Did you hear something?” he asked his guide doubtfully. “Yes,” the Indian replied. “Little noise. Know who made it?” “A shot?” “Yes. Maybe ’nother hunter, but they don’t often come here. Over toward sheep camp. But gotto hurry heap—get whisky—come back while plenty light to see.” Hugh nodded, and they headed up the ridge. CHAPTER IV