After some fifteen minutes a lazy, muffled hooting floated across the pond. Five minutes later the same call, the very voice of the wilderness at midnight, came from the deep of the woods behind the hut.
Blackstock, with Jackson close behind him and Jim pulling eagerly on the leash, was now within twenty yards of the hut door, but hidden behind a thick young fir tree. He breathed the call of the horned owl—a mellow, musical call, which nevertheless brings terror to all the small creatures of the wilderness—and then, after a pause, repeated it softly.
He waited for a couple of minutes motionless. His keen ears caught the snapping of a twig close behind the hut.
"Big Andy's big feet that time," he muttered to himself. "That boy'll never be much good on the trail."
Then, leaving Jim to the care of Jackson, he slipped forward to another and bigger tree not more than a dozen paces from the cabin. Standing close in the shadow of the trunk, and drawing his revolver, he called sharply as a gun-shot—"Dan Black."
Instantly there was a thud within the hut as of some one leaping from a bunk.
"Dan Black," repeated the Deputy, "the game's up. I've got ye surrounded. Will ye come out quietly an' give yerself up, or do ye want trouble?"
"Waal, no, I guess I don't want no more trouble," drawled a cool voice from within the hut. "I guess I've got enough o' my own already. I'll come out, Tug."
The door was flung open, and Black Dan, with his hands held up, stalked forth into the moonlight.