"The one right close is a chipmunk. I don't know what the others are; no one ever does know. Perhaps ground squirrels, or rabbits, or birds, and maybe even one of those harmless old black bears who is curious about the house. The bears have more curiosity than they can well carry around, and they say they'll sometimes come up and put their front feet on a window sill of a house, and peer through the window. They must think men are the craziest things! And of course it might be a coyote—and a mad one at that. I guess I told you that they're subject to rabies at this time of year. I'll confess I'd rather have it be anything else. And tell me—can you smell anything—"
"Good Lord, Lennox! I can smell all kinds of things."
"I'm glad. Some men can't. No one can enjoy the woods if he can't smell. Part of the smells are of flowers, and part of balsam, and God only knows what the others are. They are just the wilderness—"
Dan could not only perceive the smells and sounds, but he felt that they were leaving an imprint on the very fiber of his soul. He knew one thing. He knew he could never forget this first introduction to the mountain night. The whole scene moved him in strange, deep ways in which he had never been stirred before; it left him exultant and, in deep wells of his nature far below the usual currents of excitement, a little excited too. And all the time he had that indefinable sense of familiarity, a knowledge that this was his own land, and after a long, long time of wandering in far places, he had come back to it.
Then both of them were startled out of their reflections by the clear, unmistakable sound of footsteps on the ridge. Both of them turned, and Lennox laughed softly in the darkness. "My daughter," he said. "I knew she wouldn't be afraid to come."
V
Dan could see only Snowbird's outline at first, just her shadow against the moonlit hillside. His glasses were none too good at long range. And possibly, when she came within range, the first thing that he noticed about her was her stride. The girls he knew didn't walk in quite that free, strong way. She took almost a man-size step; and yet it was curious that she did not seem ungraceful. Dan had a distinct impression that she was floating down to him on the moonlight. She seemed to come with such unutterable smoothness. And then he heard her call lightly through the darkness.
The sound gave him a distinct sense of surprise. Some way, he hadn't associated a voice like this with a mountain girl; he had supposed that there would be so many harshening influences in this wild place. Yet the tone was as clear and full as a trained singer's. It was not a high voice; and yet it seemed simply brimming, as a cup brims with wine, with the rapture of life. It was a self-confident voice too, wholly unaffected and sincere, and wholly without embarrassment.
Then she came close, and Dan saw the moonlight on her face. And so it came about, whether in dreams or wakefulness, he could see nothing else for many hours to come.