“Oh, isn’t this a picture!” exclaimed Alta, as they came to the brow of the hill that looked down upon the cabin. “You have chosen a delightful place to live in, Uncle Dave--I beg pardon--I--” she checked herself. “No pardon needed, Miss, that’s the name I like best. Jest use it.” The remark put Alta completely at her ease. She, too, made him feel completely at home with her. He was rather uncomfortable around women. All his life he had avoided them; but Alta was so spontaneous, so natural, that the old mountaineer forgot any embarrassment he might have otherwise felt in her presence. They chatted on as if they were old acquaintances. “What jolly mountain fun we’ve had to-day!” exclaimed the happy girl, as they struck the trail toward home, after a pleasant hour at Uncle Dave’s cabin, enjoying mountaineer memories and a feast of huckleberries. “Why, he’s just a natural old man! I like him.” “Yes, and he likes you, too; that’s what makes me happy. But then, I knew he would.” “Thanks,” said Alta, laughingly. “For what?” “For the compliment you just paid me.” “Why, I didn’t----” “Didn’t mean it?” returned she playfully. “Then I’ll take back my thanks.” They had come to the forks of the trail. For a moment before parting they sat there in the twilight talking. As they did so, Fred glanced up to see some shadowy forms on horseback stealing through an opening in the grove of trees just to the eastward. “What’s that?” he whispered. She looked in the direction he was pointing. “Isn’t it a band of Indians?” she asked. “But why are they skulking about here, I wonder? It looks like mischief to me. Come, Alta, I’m going to see you safely home.” “Very well.” They turned their horses toward the Morgan ranch and galloped off. “Thank you so much, Fred, for this happy day. Good night,” she said, as she passed through the gate he had opened for her. “Good night,” he said, watching her gallop away. Then closing the gate, he leaped on Brownie, took another trail, and rode slowly homeward, with a strange new feeling in his heart. CHAPTER XII AMONG THE TEPEES The scene is a horseshoe cove, or basin, half a mile or more in average width, situated high up the mountain slopes. A rim of ragged rock hides and walls it away from the banks of hills and the peaks about it. A score of laughing streams, born of snow-fed springs, running generally toward the lower northwest end, combine there to make a strong stream which plunges into a craggy gorge and foams through it into the wider canyon below. This gorge, the only break in the wall of the basin, is at the same time the only gateway into it. A risky way it offers to those who would enter the mighty mountain horseshoe. Yet a trail there is leading into this hole in the wall, fit only for the mountain sheep; and along this risky way Old Copperhead had led his band, and within this cliff-barricaded dell they had pitched their smoky-topped tepees.