Dorn Of The Mountains Read Free Page B

on a block of wood with his palms spread to the dying warmth of the fire and his eyes fixed upon the changing glowing golden embers. Outside, the wind continued to rise and the moan of the forest increased to a roar. Dorn felt the comfortable warmth stealing over him, drowsily lulling; he heard the storm wind in the trees, now like a waterfall, and anon like a retreating army, and again low and sad, and he saw pictures in the glowing embers, strange as dreams.
    Presently he rose, and, climbing to the loft, he stretched himself out upon the boughs, and soon fell asleep.
    When the gray dawn broke, he was on his way, cross-country, to the village of Pine.
    During the night the wind had shifted and the rain had ceased. A suspicion of frost shone in the grass in open places. All was gray—the parks—the glades—and deeper darker gray were the aisles of the forest. Shadows lurked under the trees and the silence seemed consistent with spectral forms. Then the east kindled, the gray lightened, the dreaming woodland awoke to the far-reaching rays of a bursting red sun.
    This was always the happiest moment of Dorn’s lonely days, as sunset was his saddest. He responded, and there was something in his blood that answered the whistle of a stag from a nearby ridge. His strides were long, noiseless, and they left dark trace where his feet brushed the dew-laden grass.
    Dorn pursued a zigzag course over the ridges, to escape the hardest climbing, but the parques , those park-like meadows so named by Mexican sheepherders, were as round and level as if they had been made by man to show beautiful contrast to the dark-green, rough, and rugged ridges. Both open parque and dense wooded ridges showed to his quick eye an abundance of game. The cracking of twigs and disappearing flash of gray among the spruces, a round black lumbering object, a twittering in the brush, and stealthy steps—were all easy signs for Dorn to read. Once, as he noiselessly emerged into a little glade, he espied a red fox stalking some quarry, which, as he advanced, proved to be a flock of partridges. They whirred up, brushing the branches, and the fox trotted away. In every parque Dorn encountered wild turkeys, feeding on the seeds of the high grass.
    It had always been his custom, on his visits to Pine, to kill and pack fresh meat down to several old friends, who were glad to give him lodging. And hurried as he was now, he did not intend to make an exception of this trip.
    At length he got down into the pine belt, where the great gnarled yellow trees soared aloft, stately and aloof from one another, and the ground was a brown odorous springy mat of pine needles, level as a floor. Squirrels watched him from all around, scurrying away at his near approach—tiny brown light-striped squirrels, and larger ones, russet colored, and the splendid dark grays, with their white bushy tails and plumed ears.
    This belt of pine ended abruptly upon wide gray rolling open land, almost like a prairie, with foothills lifting near and far, and the red-gold blaze of aspen thickets, catching the morning sun. Here Dorn flushed a flock of wild turkeys, upwards of forty in number and their subdued color of gray flecked with white, and graceful sleek build, showed them to be hens. There was not a gobbler in the flock. They began to run pell-mell out into the grass, until only their heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dorn caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and, as they saw him and darted into the timber, he took a quick shot at the hindmost. His bullet struck low, as he had meant it to, but too low, and the coyote got only a dusting of earth and pine needles thrown up in his face. This frightened him so that he leaped aside blindly to butt into a tree, rolled over, gained his feet, and then the cover of the forest. Dorn was amused at this. His hand was against all the predatory beasts of the forest, although he had learned