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Though exceedingly tired, he was yet loath to yield to lassitude, but this night it was not froilance; it was from a desire to realize his position The details of his wild environe drea black, the undulating surface of forest, like a rippling lake, and the spear-pointed spruces He heard the flutter of aspen leaves and the soft, continuous splash of falling water The melancholy note of a canyon bird broke clear and lonely froer, and he had never seen one, but the few notes, always pealing out just at darkness, were as familiar to him as the canyon silence Then they ceased, and the rustle of leaves and thesound that Venters fancied was not of earth Neither had he a name for this, only it was inexpressibly wild and sweet The thought cairl in her last outcry of life, and he felt a treh it was like despair He began to doubt his sensitive perceptions, to believe that he half-dreaht he heard Then the sound swelled with the strengthening of the breeze, and he realized it was the singing of the wind in the cliffs

By and by a drowsiness overcaan to nod, half asleep, with his back against a spruce Rousing hiirl lay barely visible in the di of his tail on the stone assured Venters that the dog ake and faithful to his duty Venters sought his own bed of fragrant boughs; and as he lay back, soht seeible space and rest and sluined was only the haunting echo of dream music He opened his eyes to another surprise of this valley of beautiful surprises Out of his cave he saw the exquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round space of blue ray birds with black and white stripes and long tails They wereas if they wanted to burst their throats Venters listened One long, silver-tipped branch dropped almost to his cave, and upon it, within a few yards of hi and quivering of its throat in song He arose, and when he slid down out of his cave the birds fluttered and flew farther away