Dale threw the two turkeys over his shoulder and went on his way. Soon he came to a break in the forest level, from which he gazed down a league-long slope of pine and cedar, out upon the bare, glistening desert, stretching away, endlessly rolling out to the dim, dark horizon line.
The little hamlet of Pine lay on the last level of sparsely timbered forest. A road, running parallel with a dark-watered, swift-flowing stream, divided the cluster of log cabins from which columns of blue smoke drifted lazily aloft. Fields of corn and fields of oats, yellow in the sunlight, surrounded the village; and green pastures, dotted with horses and cattle, reached away to the denser woodland. This site appeared to be a natural clearing, for there was no evidence of cut timber. The scene was rather too wild to be pastoral, but it was serene, tranquil, giving the impression of a remote community, prosperous and happy, drifting along the peaceful tenor of sequestered lives.
Dale halted before a neat little log cabin and a little patch of garden bordered with sunflowers. His call was answered by an old woman, gray and bent, but remarkably spry, who appeared at the door.
"Why, land's sakes, if it ain't Milt Dale!" she exclaimed, in welcome.
"Reckon it's me, Mrs. Cass," he replied. "An' I've brought you a turkey."
"Milt, you're that good boy who never forgits old Widow Cass.... What a gobbler! First one I've seen this fall. My man Tom used to fetch home gobblers like that.... An' mebbe he'll come home again sometime."
Her husband, Tom Cass, had gone into the forest years before and had never returned. But the old woman always looked for him and never gave up hope.
"Men have been lost in the forest an' yet come back," replied Dale, as he had said to her many a time.
"Come right in. You air hungry, I know. Now, son, when last did you eat a fresh egg or a flapjack?"
"You should remember," he answered, laughing, as he followed her into a small, clean kitchen.
"Laws-a'-me! An' thet's months ago," she replied, shaking her gray head. "Milt, you should give up that wild life--an' marry--an' have a home."
"You always tell me that."
"Yes, an' I'll see you do it yet.... Now you set there, an' pretty soon I'll give you thet to eat which 'll make your mouth water."
"What's the news, Auntie?" he asked.
"Nary news in this dead place. Why, nobody's been to Snowdrop in two weeks!... Sary Jones died, poor old soul--she's better off--an' one of my cows run away. Milt, she's wild when she gits loose in the woods. An' you'll have to track her, 'cause nobody else can. An' John Dakker's heifer was killed by a lion, an' Lem Harden's fast hoss--you know his favorite--was stole by hoss-thieves. Lem is jest crazy. An' that reminds me, Milt, where's your big ranger, thet you'd never sell or lend?"