“It happens to the best of herders.” “Then why can’t I go out to look for them—and let you stay here? That’s what I’m going to do.” “No. You must stay here. You don’t know sheep yet, Hugh, and likely you don’t know these mountains. The band of them is somewhere through the stretch you fed over to-day—and I would know just how and where to look for them. At night with no dog—the dog must stay here with you—you wouldn’t be able to drive them. I even have to go on foot, so I can climb down into the steep canyons and go through the brush. It’s part of the life of the camp-tender.” “But you won’t go—in this darkness——” “I’ll wait till the moon rises. Besides, I know this Smoky Land from end to end. So don’t be afraid for me.” They stood silent by the leaping flame. The sheep lay quiet, the shepherd dog slept at Hugh’s feet. And subtly stealing into their consciousness above the sound of the leaping flame they heard the voice of the forest, mysterious and profound,—the little sounds of the wind in the thicket, the rustling of leaves, the hushed footfall of the wild creatures. Into that darkness Alice would venture for her lost sheep. Hugh felt a strange weight of dread. Above the far mountains the clouds gleamed with the first beams of the rising moon. CHAPTER XIII In that momentous twilight that brought Hugh Gaylord to the sheep camp for the first time, there was unfamiliar traffic on the brown, pine-needle trail that wound down to the meadows from the darkening forest. There was the sound of a footfall not often heard. And one can imagine the lesser forest people—the little gnawing folk that have underground lairs and to whom the ferns are a beautiful, tropical forest—gazing up with bright eyes to see who came. Perhaps at first they thought it was merely one of the hunters: a great creature of claw or fang such as a wolf or cougar. This was the hour when the beasts of prey started forth to hunt, and it was true that the step had a stealthy, hushed quality of one who does not care to have his presence known. It can be understood why a little gopher, so fat of cheeks that he gave the impression of being afflicted with mumps, lay rather close and still among his tree roots until the creature got past. He didn’t care to feel a puma claw impaling him as a fishhook impales a worm. The gopher has not particularly acute vision, so this traveler on the pine-needle trail was to remain ever a mystery to him. He was aware of a tall, dark form that glided softly and departed; and life became the same puzzling grayness that it had been before. A chipmunk, however—like a little patch of light and shadow against a brown tree trunk—could see much better. And he lay very still, only his eyes busy, until he found out the truth.