It all seemed so natural and real. Even the dim twilight and the glow of the dying fire seemed something vividly remembered from long ago. Yet there was nothing here of the world he knew, the world of cities and gaieties and throngs. There was nothing in his past life to explain the intimacy he felt. At the edge of the little meadow the dusk deepened between the trees. The strong profiles of the pines dimmed and blurred, the distant peaks receded—with a curious effect of actual motion—into the further recesses of the twilight. Here and there the stars were pushing through, and he suddenly regarded them with some wonder. He couldn’t ever remember noticing them in particular before. Perhaps the smoke that ever hung over his city mostly obscured them; possibly he had never had occasion to think about them. Now he was startled by the same curious sense of familiarity—as if he had lain beneath them a thousand-thousand years and they were old friends come back to talk to him again.
They grew inexpressively bright. Their numbers increased, they filled the sky, they grouped themselves in geometrical patterns and designs, dropping down as if on invisible threads to the spires of the distant pines. For one little instant, as he raised his eyes aloft, he was an astrologer of old, and a knowledge of the ages was upon him. He felt stirred to the depths of his being.
He dropped his eyes to regard the sheep. The outline of the separate animals was altogether lost by now: they were just a dim, white mass in the faint glow of the fire. It was the same as always: they had all bedded down for the night. He saw the light spring up in the herder’s tent as the guide lighted a candle, and this was familiar too.
The Indian came out and with strong, steady strokes began to break wood for the fire. The swarthy face looked unusually dusky in the red glow of the coals. As yet the two men had not discussed the grim find in the tent. There had been scarcely nothing to say in regard to it. Hugh felt no especial excitement or awe: he had been almost as cold and impassive in regard to the tragedy as Pete himself.
Such an attitude might have been expected in the guide, but it caused some self-wonder to see it in himself. Pete was a wilderness man, and if there is one lesson to be learned in the primeval forest it is the reality and the inevitability of death. He was used to death. He had seen it every day. All night long the ancient war of the wilderness waged on, and many were its casualties. The night shuddered with them: the agony of the deer in the cougar’s claws; the crunch of fangs when the wolves tracked down their game; even the shrill, terrible death-cry of the birds when the climbing marten overtook them on their perches. Not for nothing does the buzzard watch all day from the clouds. He knows; and whoever listens to the wilderness voices knows too. The wild, despairing song of the pack, the wail of the coyote, even the murmur of the pines is a song of death, immutable and dark, at the end of their little days. But what did Hugh know of these things? He had always lived a sheltered life. Yet now he felt no horror, no excitement, only the realization that he was face to face with reality at last.
The guide had heaped fuel on the fire and it threw a bright glare over the whole camp. Hugh could even make out the dark border of the forest at the extremities of its glow. Then the Indian turning back into the tent, Hugh entered also.
“Then the shot we heard was the one that killed this man?” he asked.
“Yes. Pistol killed dog. Maybe we too far to hear shot.”
“And you haven’t any idea—what could have been the motive, the reason for killing him.”
“Yes—” The Indian paused and stared down at the still form.
“What do you think it was?” Hugh spoke very quietly.
“Big fight—over the range,” Pete explained with difficulty. “This big cattle country—cattlemen always try to keep out sheep. Maybe other reasons too, but that began it. Always shooting—cattlemen and sheepmen. This first flock anywhere near—first in this part of Smoky Land.”
“Then it was just cold-blooded murder.”
“Yes. No signs of a fight. Maybe shot him through tent door, then tried to kill dogs. Killed one, wounded other. Now I cook supper.”
The Indian, wholly without emotion, began to take stores from the dead herder’s grub-box. He noted that the man’s supplies seemed almost gone, only a few potatoes, a small piece of bacon in an oiled paper, and a little flour remaining. The guide saw his look of question and made explanation.
“Camp-tender come soon,” he said.
“And who is the camp-tender?”
“Each sheep camp has two men. One herder. The other packs in supplies—food for herder, salt for sheep. Come every two weeks, maybe sooner, and camp-tender due here pretty soon. But he’ll find—plenty sheep dead.”
For once Hugh did not have to ask questions. The guide’s last few words explained, in a measure, the motive for the murder. Without a herder and with only one dog left to care for the flocks, the beasts of prey would find easy hunting. “But we’ll stop that game,” Hugh said decidedly. “Tomorrow morning—tonight, if you think we can make the trail, we’ll go in and take this man’s body to the coroner. Then the sheep owner can send up another herder.”
Hugh looked up to find an odd, grim little smile at the guide’s lips. It was
