He buckled on his gun-belt, and, extinguishing the light, he hurried
out.
A crescent moon had just tipped the bluff. The village lanes and cabins and
trees lay silver in the moon-light. A lonesome coyote barked in the distance.
All else was still. The air was cool, sweet, fragrant. There appeared to be a
glamour of light, of silence, of beauty over the desert.
Slone kept under the dark lee of the bluff and worked around so that he could
be above the village, where there was little danger of meeting any one. Yet
presently he had to go out of the shadow into the moon-blanched lane. Swift
and silent as an Indian he went along, keeping in the shade of what trees
there were, until he came to the grove of cottonwoods. The grove was a black
mystery lanced by silver rays. He slipped in among the trees, halting every
few steps to listen. The action, the realization had helped to make him cool,
to steel him, though never before in his life had he been so exalted. The
pursuit and capture of Wildfire, at one time the desire of his heart, were as
nothing to this.
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