them; for there was a romantic strain in the young mountaineer, developed by a year at college in the lowlands, which caused him to give titles of his own to those wild creatures of the mountain woods which were constantly crossing his path.
It was no feeling akin to affection, however, which had led him to study with special care the habits of the peregrine falcon and the old red fox which had their homes on the craggy summit of Devilhead Peak, looming high above his cabin. Long ago Dan had learned to look upon these two as his foes and rivals, destroyers of the game which he loved to hunt and which he regarded as his most precious possession. Again and again he had seen the evidences of their depredations, and for months he had waged an intermittent war against them. So far, however, they had thwarted all his stratagems and defied his woodcraft; and now, as he passed on along the trail, humming a tune under his breath, resentment gradually supplanted the amusement which the episode in the wheat field had inspired.
He had found delight in witnessing the discomfiture of Cloud King. That bold pirate of the airy spaces had been fooled for once; the game which he had killed had been taken away from him under his very nose. But while one of the brigands of Devilhead had thus been cheated, the other had profited. Red Rogue, the rascally fox that lived by
