and level as if they had been made by man in beautiful
contrast to the dark-green, rough, and rugged ridges. Both
open senaca and dense wooded ridge 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 Dale 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 senaca Dale 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 though 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 foot-hills lifting
near and far, and the red-gold blaze of aspen thickets