LD DAN'S bones were chilly and lean, and so his favorite chair was on his front porch, in the sun. He would roost there like some old bird, his hard, dry, sun-yellowed hands clutching the chair arms and suggesting claws, and his bright eyes, like a hen's, sharply watching the hillside in front of the house.
He did not talk much, but what he did say, from his chair in the sun, carried a long way through the wood-grown hills of his neighborhood. The reason was that he had had a long time to sit and think things out and particularly to watch what went on upon the sunlit hillside; and the mountain men know that thinking is better than reading books.
The house stood a long way from any village, and thus the view was not spoiled. Flowers blossomed and died and scattered seed, so that the hillside might be beautiful another year. Little trees grew, and leaves fell and rustled. Cautious ground squirrels ran, paused, flirted tails, and collected pine nuts for the hard winters.
Indeed, the hillside was a veritable cinema of the seasons. The migratory birds held a spring jubilee here after their winter travels, and told outrageous lies to the jays and chickadees, who had remained as winter caretakers. In the summer, snakes came out of their mysterious hiding places; and because they also loved to remain motionless in the sun, Old Dan sympathized with them, and would not think of killing them, except, perhaps, some old scandalmonger with a particularly venomous tongue. Young does, hushed and trembling from the sheer wonder of living, brought their fawns into the manzanita shade.
In winter the hillside was banked white, and nothing passed at all except starved, furtive things that haunted the night. In this season Old Dan envied the tourist birds, and even the snakes in their grottoes; for the mountain winter is long and harsh and bitter, and his bones cracked and ached from the cold.
It was fall now—the loveliest of seasons, except for the threat of winter whispering through it. Old Dan's eyes loved color, and he found it—fabulous carnivals of color to warm the chilling currents of his blood. Browns and yellows and reds, with all the shades between, overran every deciduous tree and shrub. Gold was poured everywhere, and a yellow haze made him feel warm and tranquil.
In this season scurrying activity went on among the old man's forest friends. The buck deer pranced and showed off, and almost ran in circles in their excitement. The grouse joined up into nervous, foolish, hysterical communities. The woods were agog with all kinds of rumors—tales of berry patches breaking down with their load of fruit, of hillsides cobblestoned with acorns, and weather forecasts of disaster and sudden death.
So perfect and still was one late October afternoon that Old Dan's son came out to sit with him on the front porch. This was Young Dan, a mountain man in his prime, lean and powerful as a cougar; and since he had learned the mountain trick of silence, could smoke his pipe and say almost nothing at all, and could enter freely into communion with the golden outdoors, he was superior company.
The two watched the trees casting long shadow bars across the hillside. They saw the sun spray through tinted leaves; and they followed, with slow-moving gaze, a buzzard calmly circling above the tree tops. This respected bird, an undertaker of parts, had not anticipated any business in this particular section; but he took a turn around, just to make sure. One can never tell about such things, in the forests. Everybody is a prospect.
Shortly after the buzzard completed his observations, a visitor of real eminence came into view on the hillside. This was no common sight, even in the wilderness—a large black creature with a queer, shuffling gait and a droll and absent-minded manner. She suddenly appeared, after the manner of wild things, out of nowhere, and as she moved through the yellow haze and among the colored leaves she added pleasantly to the picture.
Which of the two men saw her first it would be difficult to decide. Young Dan was in his prime, but if those cold, gray eyes of his could pick up an object—particularly a moving object in a maze of light and shadow—more quickly than those queer bright beads under Old Dan's grizzled brows, events had taken a strange pass. However, the former was the first to get into action. In fact, the latter did not get into action at all. He smiled dimly, the more so when he saw two small editions of the black creature immediately behind her, and he pointed his thumb in a short gesture, but he did not leave his chair.
Young Dan sprang up, seized a rifle which was kept near the door, and, swiftly working the bolt, threw a shell into the chamber.