In a pine tree close at hand an owl asked: "Who? Who? Who—o-o-o?" in doleful tones. From a distant hilltop came the derisive, outlaw laughter of coyotes. A big toad hopped on the porch, blinked at the man in the moonlight, and then started ponderously for his door. Oliver rose and with his foot turned him twice, but the toad corrected his course immediately and seemed determined to enter the house willy-nilly.
"But I don't want you in there," Oliver protested boyishly. "I might step on you in the dark, or accidentally put my hand on your old cold back."
He closed the door, and the toad hopped on the threshold, as if resolved to await his chance for a strategic entrance.
"All right," said Oliver. "Sit there! When I'm ready to go in I'll climb through a window. You are not going into that house!"
He laughed at himself. His was a lonesome life when he was not with Jessamy; and, always a lover of every living thing that God has created, he had made friends with the wild life that moved about his cabin, so that toads and lizards, birds and squirrels looked to him for food and had no fear of him.
He sat puffing at his pipe and giving the obstinate toad blink for blink, when there came to his ears strange sounds from up the lonely cañon.
At first he imagined they were made by roving cattle, then he recognized the ring of shod hoofs on the stones in the trail. Then voices. And presently he knew that many horsemen were riding toward the cabin—a veritable cavalcade.
He rose from his chair and stood listening, not without a feeling of apprehension. As the concerted thudding of many hoofs drew closer and closer he ran into the cabin and strapped on his six-shooter. He had been at a complete loss to interpret Old Man Selden's later attitude toward him, and was wary of a trap. The sounds he heard could mean nothing to him except that the Poison Oakers were at last riding upon him to begin their raid.
Suddenly from the other direction came the clattering hoofbeats of a single galloping horse. Silvery under the magic light of the moon, a white horse burst into view, galloping over a little rise to the south. It carried a rider. Now came a familiar "Who-hoo!" And Jessamy Selden soon was bending from her saddle at the cabin door.
"Thank goodness, I'm in time!" she said. "I didn't know when they would start, and I waited too long."