There were secrets of a certain sort up this gulch, as David Joslin knew. Few men openly went into the mouth of this wild ravine, and there was no definite path up the creek such as marked most of the others thereabout. None the less Joslin in the darkness of the night turned into it as one wholly familiar with the vicinity.
He was a woodsman, a wild man fit to conquer and prevail in any wild land. He went now about the business he purposed as steadily as though he were well accustomed to it. With not even the slight assistance of an occasional star, he found the trunk of a giant poplar tree which had fallen—perhaps he knew it from his many wanderings here. The bark upon the trunk was dry, and with the aid of a broken branch he loosed a long fold, sufficient for a roof when propped up on the trunk of the tree itself. He felt within the rotted trunk and drew out an armful of rotted but dry wood, which made him good floor enough for his bed, keeping him above the dampness. A part of it also offered punk for the tinder which he found within the breast of his own blouse. Here also were the primitive tools of the frontiersman in this land—flint and steel. And with flint and steel David Joslin now managed to build himself a fire even in the dripping rain.
He cast himself down, not to sleep, but to ponder and to brood. The wall of blackness shut him in all about, but before him passed continually the panorama of his dreams.
The night wore through, and at length the gray dawn came. The wind was rising now, high in the tops of the trees, and the air was colder since the rain had ceased. Any but a hardened man who had slept thus would have waked stiffened and shivering. Not so Joslin, who rebuilt his fire and looked about him for something with which to stay a hunger natural after twenty-four hours of abstinence. A few fallen nuts from the trees, a frozen persimmon or so, made all the breakfast he could find. In his cupped hand he drank from the little stream. In a few moments he was at the débouchement of the creek trail leading up to his father’s home. He halted here as he heard the sound of hoof-beats coming down the stream bed.
A rider came into view making such speed as he could down the perilous footing. He drew up his horse, startled at seeing a man here, but an instant later smiled.
“That ye, Dave?” said he. “Ye had me skeered at fust.”
“What’s yore hurry? Whar ye goin’?”
“Hurry enough—I was a-comin’ atter ye,”
“What’s wrong?”