“Good-by,” he responded reluctantly, captivated by her wildly sweet ways. She dashed off through the sage on her nimble pony.
Fred intended fully to keep his promise, but his hunt for more chickens led him several miles from the ranch up into the eastern foothills, and before he realized how the day was slipping by the sun had almost set.
The eastern slopes, with all their wondrous forms brought into relief by the evening shadows, and the mountain tops, lighted by the golden glow of the sinking sun, made so beautiful a picture that the boy stopped to enjoy it. As he sat there resting, with leg flung over the saddle horn, drinking in the cool scented breezes that had begun to pour out of the canyons, he noticed just above him to the eastward a kind of glen that opened gently with grassy, flower-strewn, aspen-groved slopes on to the flat below. Farther up the sides were ragged rocks and pines; and just above the hill over which the shorter trail led into the glen, was a rather bold cliff.
Fred thought he saw smoke rising up the face of the cliff. He looked again more sharply; no smoke could be seen. Perhaps his eyes had deceived him; but he was curious now to explore further.
“How about it, Brownie? Shall we find out what the place looks like?” It was his habit sometimes to think out loud around Brownie. She did not seem to object, so they began to climb slowly up the hillside.
The smoke appeared again; there was no mistaking it this time. The thought flashed across him, “Perhaps it is Indians.” He checked his mare. If it should be, Fred had no desire to meet them alone in this strange place, especially since he had heard they were in an ugly temper just then because the game wardens had been checking them in their killing the elk and deer.
He half decided to turn back, but his curiosity held him—his curiosity and love of adventure made him decide to slip up the hill and take a peep at things. Suiting his action to the thought, he dismounted, tethered his mare to a bunch of brush, and made his way cautiously to the top. When very near it, he dropped to his hands and knees, crept to the summit, and peered through the brush to take in the scene below.
It was a kind of cove, grassy, flower-sprinkled, and strewn in nature’s delightfully careless way with groves and shrubs. A great cliff formed part of the background. Several shaggy pine trees shot above it. At the base of the cliff was a grove of aspen saplings, out of which a brook came dancing. But the thing which held his interest most was the cabin that stood directly before him just within the edge of the aspen grove.
The cabin was rather roughly built, but it looked cozy. A generous stone chimney, out of which the thin blue smoke was rising, stood at the north end. One door, half open, and a small window were on the west. The skin of some animal was nailed on the outside. A large dog lay dozing near the door. The occasional clingety-clang of a cow bell broke the evening stillness as bossy, grazing on the sweet grasses near the cabin, would throw her head from time to time to shake off the bothersome flies. There were no other signs of life around. Fred, however, had assured himself of one thing: it was not Indians that lived there.
Yet Indians could scarcely have frightened him more than did a quiet voice behind him, as it said, “Wal, boy, how do ye like the place?”