with arms. As it had grown out of silence, so now it died away; from
a culminating shout which had seemed almost in their ears, it drew
itself away into the distance, until its failing notes, joyless and
mechanical to the last, sank to silence at a measureless remove.



THE SECRET OF MACARGER'S GULCH



North Westwardly from Indian Hill, about nine miles as the crow
flies, is Macarger's Gulch. It is not much of a gulch--a mere
depression between two wooded ridges of inconsiderable height. From
its mouth up to its head--for gulches, like rivers, have an anatomy
of their own--the distance does not exceed two miles, and the width
at bottom is at only one place more than a dozen yards; for most of
the distance on either side of the little brook which drains it in
winter, and goes dry in the early spring, there is no level ground at
all; the steep slopes of the hills, covered with an almost
impenetrable growth of manzanita and chemisal, are parted by nothing
but the width of the water course. No one but an occasional
enterprising hunter of the vicinity ever goes into Macarger's Gulch,
and five miles away it is unknown, even by name. Within that
distance in any direction are far more conspicuous topographical
features without names, and one might try in vain to ascertain by
local inquiry the origin of the name of this one.

About midway between the head and the mouth of Macarger's Gulch, the
hill on the right as you ascend is cloven by another gulch, a short