It was only a deer he heard moving along the hillside above him, and there was nothing visible but the row of stupendous columns that appeared and vanished as the red light rose and sank.

Alton set the kettle down amidst the flame, and unrolling one of the packages laid out his supper.
It was prepared and eaten in twenty minutes, and refilling the kettle for breakfast he lay smoking in a hollow between the great roots which crawled away from a cedar-trunk.

Nothing moved in the bush now but a bear that was grubbing amidst the wild cabbage in a swamp, and the weary man, stretching out his hand instinctively to touch the rifle that lay within his reach, gave himself up to thought.

He had also much to occupy him, and being a somewhat systematic person he proceeded to consider the questions that demanded an answer in what appeared to him their order of importance.

It was characteristic that in face of recent events he placed the probable whereabouts of the silver first.
This was at the first glance a somewhat difficult problem.