The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines and swirled about
the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar screamed somewhere on the
mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his
head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his
beat.
In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of
his scanty store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the
canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.
It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he reached what he knew must
be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was
little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward
the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt
cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim of this
precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the
pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and
hard.
Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs.
Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back
and forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below.
Pages:
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433