did not believe he
would return by the road he had taken.

Fox, Wade's favorite dog, much to his disgust, was left behind with
Lewis. The bloodhound, Kane, accompanied Wade. Kane had been ill-treated
and then beaten by Jack Belllounds, and he had left White Slides to take
up his home at Moore's cabin. And at last he had seemed to reconcile
himself to the hunter, not with love, but without distrust. Kane never
forgave; but he recognized his friend and master. Wade carried his rifle
and a buckskin pouch containing meat and bread. His belt, heavily
studded with shells, contained two guns, both now worn in plain sight,
with the one on the right side hanging low. Wade's character seemed to
have undergone some remarkable change, yet what he represented then was
not unfamiliar.

He headed for the concealed cabin on the edge of the high valley, under
the black brow of Gore Peak. It was early morning of a July day, with
summer fresh and new to the forest. Along the park edges the birds and
squirrels were holding carnival. The grass was crisp and bediamonded
with sparkling frost. Tracks of game showed sharp in the white patches.
Wade paused once, listening. Ah! That most beautiful of forest melodies
for him--the bugle of an elk. Clear, resonant, penetrating, with these
qualities held and blended by a note of wildness, it rang thrillingly
through all Wade's being. The hound listened, but was not interested. He
kept close beside the hunter or at his heels, a stealthily stepping,
warily glancing hound, not scenting the four-footed denizens of the
forest. He expected his master to put him on the trail of men.

The distance from the Park to Gore Peak, as a crow would have flown, was
not great. But Wade progressed slowly; he kept to the dense parts of
the forest; he avoided the open aisles, the swales, the glades, the high
ridges, the rocky ground. When he came to the Elgeria trail he was not
disappointed to find it smooth, untrodden by any recent travel. Half a
mile farther on through the forest, however, he encountered tracks of
three horses, made early the day before. Still farther on he found
cattle and horse tracks, now growing old and dim. These tracks, pointed
toward Elgeria, were like words of a printed page to Wade.

About noon he climbed a rocky eminence that jutted out from a
slow-descending ridge, and from this vantage-point he saw down the
wavering black and green bosom of the mountain slope. A narrow valley,
almost hi