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Whereupon, in studious mood, Dale took up his rifle and strode out to hunt His winter supply of venison had not yet been laid in Action suited hisbuck to slay which seemed murder; at last he jumped one that ild and bounded away This he shot, and set hi the whole carcass back to ca freely,with toil, until at last he had reached camp There he slid the deer carcass off his shoulders, and, standing over it, he gazed dohile his breast labored It was one of the finest young bucks he had ever seen But neither in stalking it, nor ht that would have burdened twodown at his beautiful quarry, did Dale experience any of the old joy of the hunter

"I'm a little off my feed," he mused, as he wiped sweat from his heated face "Maybe a little dotty, as I called Al But that'll pass"

Whatever his state, it did not pass As of old, after a long day's hunt, he reclined beside the cae on the ramparts; as of old he laid a hand on the soft, furry head of the pet cougar; as of old he watched the gold change to red and then to dark, and twilight fall like a blanket; as of old he listened to the drea murmur of the water fall The old familiar beauty, wildness, silence, and loneliness were there, but the old content seeone

Soberly he confessed then that he uish Helen froht his bed he did not at once fall to sleep Always, after a few moments of wakefulness, while the silence settled down or the wind ht he found different Though he was tired, sleep would not soon come The wilderness, the mountains, the park, the ca Even the darkness seeth Dale fell asleep it was to be troubled by restless dreaht dawn, he went at the his tasks with the springy stride of the deer-stalker

At the end of that strenuous day, which was singularly full of the old exciteer, and of new observations, he was bound to confess that no longer did the chase suffice for him