Abruptly the Indian paused and held up his hand. Hugh crept near.
" Big animal—close," the guide whispered. "Maybe you get a shot."
Hugh stood still, listening. Far distant he heard the usual, faint mysterious sounds that the early night hours always bring to the wilderness world; but if anything, the primordial silence was more heavy and portentous than ever. The snow peaks still gleamed faintly, and he sensed their majesty and grandeur as never before. It was not alone an impression of beauty. Beauty is an external thing alone: in this moment of farseeing, he understood something of their mighty symbolism, their eternal watch over the waste places. He saw them as they were: grand, silent, unutterably aloof.
"How do you know?" he asked, in reply to his guide. "I don't hear anything."
The truth was that Pete would have found considerable difficulty in telling just how he knew. Rather it was a sixth sense, an essence in the air that blunter senses could not have perceived. "We're near flock—maybe lot of varmints hanging close. Always is—around sheep. Don't know what animal came near just now—cougar, I think."
"Maybe old Broken Fang himself?"
"I don't know. Heap maybe not. Country's big."
Pete was given to telling lies, on occasion, but
