Not a thing seemed unusual.
Yet Lite stood just outside the stable, and the sensation that something was wrong grew keener.

He was not a nervous person,--you would have laughed at the idea of nerves in connection with Lite Avery.
He felt that something was wrong, just the same.

It was not altogether the hurried departure of Aleck Douglas, either, that made him feel so.
He looked at the house setting back there close to the bluff just where it began to curve rudely out from the narrowest part of the coulee.

It was still and quiet, with closed windows and doors to tell there was no one at home.

And yet, to Lite its very silence seemed sinister.
Wolves were many, down in the breaks along the river that spring; and the coyotes were an ever-present evil among the calves, so that Lite never rode abroad without his six-shooter.