Twice I got up and sat by the open window and gazed out at the black landscape. The sky was cloudy and there were no stars; this combined with the pine trees about the ranch house made the darkness so black and thick that it seemed as if one might cut it in chunks, with a knife. The air felt good to breathe but I did not propose to sit by the window all night so at last I arose, put moccasins on my feet and, taking my blankets with me, stole stealthily down the stairs, opened the front door and made my bed on the floor of the broad piazza. I had not forgotten the warning to keep indoors, but I thought I would rather risk the wolves than to smother all night. In the darkness I discovered another occupant of the piazza also rolled up in a blanket taken from a bed in the house. Feeling with my hands I discovered that it was Big Pete. Comfortably settling myself in my blanket I felt the breeze from the mountain blowing over my face and through my hair, and it soothed me until I dropped off into gentle slumber; but during the months I had been sleeping in the open I had learned the art, as the saying is, of sleeping with one eye open. In this case, however, if the eye had really been wide open it could have seen nothing because of the darkness, but the darkness did not interfere with my ability to hear, and after I had been sleeping awhile I found myself suddenly sitting bolt upright in my blankets with beads of perspiration on my forehead and that terrible sensation of horror which one experiences in a nightmare. I knew that I had heard something, but what? The oppressive silence of the wilderness made the valley appear as if Nature was holding her breath for a moment before giving voice to an explosion of sound. I sensed impending disaster of some sort. What it was I could not guess, but was convinced that something was about to happen. As I held my breath and listened, the ranch house was silent; even Pete had not, apparently, awakened, but I could not hear his regular breathing. Now I thought I could detect a soft and very faint noise as of some large body creeping over the puncheon steps. I also imagined I detected the noise of padded feet and the scraping noise of claws on the wood. A shudder ran through me. Was a panther, a mountain lion, about to spring upon me? No, I abandoned the thought and instinctively I knew that it must be one of the black wolf pack. Then I remembered hearing the cracking and breaking of sticks or timber while I was trying to sleep in the bedroom, and I felt that Pluto had broken out of the pen and was creeping up on us slowly and stealthily as I have seen a fox creep up on a covey of quail.