The shadows now began to close in, the gulches standing out in bold relief, black, forbidding seas at the foot of the ridges that lay a white wonderland in the moonlight.
"This is great!" declared Ned enthusiastically.
"Glorious," breathed Tad, drinking in the scene with wide open eyes, while inhaling in long, slow breaths, the soft mountain air. "I never saw anything more beautiful."
Now that night had settled over the trail, the riders had to move along more cautiously, and with tight reins, that their ponies might not stumble and hurl the riders over their heads. Tad, with an eye to caution, had advised them to do this. In this way the train moved on until nearly nine o'clock, when Lige announced that they had reached their halting place.
The mountain top where they stopped was thickly studded with cedars and pinyon trees, while off in the ravines slender spruces reared their sharp points above the shadows, projecting up through the black sea like the spars of a whole fleet of sunken schooners.
"Old Ben Tackers lives nigh here," the guide told them. "I'll go over and get him after supper. We can then talk with him about his dog. He can tell us all about the game. Ben is a character. However, you mustn't mind his blunt way of speaking. The old fellow is all right at heart."
Ben came over later in the evening, and the boys were much interested in him. A thick shock of shaggy hair covered his head and face, while through the mass of gray and brown twinkled a pair of bright, beady eyes. Ned said they reminded him of a couple of burnt holes in a horse blanket.
"Any game about here, Mr. Tackers?" asked Ned after the old mountaineer had been introduced to them.
"For them as can see, there's things to be seen," answered Ben enigmatically. "What do you reckon on shooting?"
"Anything we can find to shoot at," answered Ned.