The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-21
---------------- DELlRI UM OF q ES.
The Strange Adventure Western Hunter
 IhuugIit He cad.

| his life in the mountains, anu ilau heN- CT been afraid Then, at an age when his experience should have been com plete and his nerves hardened to any strain, he met with an adventure which, having first dealt rude blow to his most cherished theories and giv" en him an unexpected insight into the subject of metaphysics, sent him Tn haste to the nearest mining town, where he might, in the presence of sub stantial human beings, get a new hold 1 upon the reality of things. He is still trying for that hold, and it has been q matter of no small wonder to many GU rious people, though manifestiy none of their business, that the solitary, the nature-loving, crowdhating Eph Baird should have become so suddenly 1nfat- uated with the common comforts of a fire of coals, and the chatter or pun gent barroom The strangest thing or. all, moreover, is that this revolution of haste is as inexplicable, though per haps not so utterly mysterious to Baird as it is to the most eager gossip l III tlc lOWHj duU II etlly oiiS, iioN AGS read this narrative, can offer an expla- nation that will be satisfactory to the common sense of plain man, why, let htm do it-and welcome to the honor
 It was at the close of an autumn day in the year 1SS--. Eph Baird, in very ugly frame of mind, sat upon bowl der near the summit of particularly wild and rugged mountain in the San- gre de Cristo range. For number of hours he had been pursuing a moun- tain sheep, which had led him most eXasperating chase There was, he growled to himself something queer about the beast, for no other animal he had ever met had been able to give him l the slip in manner so taunting.i So I it put him in vain rage, when, after long pursuit, he saw the sheep stand- | ing on q rock, the topnost of the mountain, his graceful body outlined l in bold silhouette against the red of | the sinking sun. He aimed his rifle at | the statuesque8figu and fred-fired with as much sense as if the sun itself had been his target. A few seconds longer the sheep stood there, and then dropped out of sight and the hunter was left alone in the twilight and his own angry reflections.
 l The place where he rested was, he calculated, at least half dozen miles from his camp,zno great matter in a l level country, but not pleasant thing to contemplate when the route was to be found and would at best lead over heaped-up rocks and precipitous de- scents all overgrown with a tangle of brush and a shadowing of spruce trees. Night was coming on. Below him the mute forests of pine were full dark and he shivering shadows were crawling upward toward the summit, where twi- lights sober hues still fingered. With a last look at the pink glow along the ragged top of the mountain, Baird gathered up his tired limbs and started down the bowlder-littered slope.
 He was getting along encouragingly and was jus about to congratulate himself upon having the best of the ill-omened animal after all, when, of a sudden, powder gave way beneath his foot and he was precipitated down a steep declivity. He brought up at the bottom of 8 little gulch or ravine, one of those deep diininutive hollows hid away among he hills and discerna- ble at a distance only as darker shad- ows on the mountain sides. This one he had been trying to avoid as he picked his way downward, not liking the looks of it. But finding himself there despite his inclinations. Baird concluded, in his weariness, that to follow the ravine with all it's possibili- ties would be an undertaking prefera- ble to that of climbing the steep eccliv- ity to his former position. So he struck out boldly, though with some trepidation, into the shades.
 A great tangle of spruce and aspen and fir, with an annoying under growth, opposed him, and it was with a growing sense of having tackled a bad job that he forced himself desper- ately through ii. The vines tripped him. the stubborn limbs bruised his body, and the needles scratched his face so that when he suddenly burst through the obstructions into what seemed a small clearing in the pine grove he stopped in his tracks to breathe and to mutter an imprecation upon the pesky sheep, to which his su- perstitious misgivings persisted in at- tributing the responsibility for his mis- fortunes. He looked about him and saw small, leafy corridor cleared of undergrowth, as if by the hand of man, but wholly shut in like piney cavern by the luxuriant foliage. Through the arching roof of this green cave Baird, as he looked curiously, discerned the faint twinkling of star or two, by the light of which the grove was dirnly il- luminated. As his glance fell again upon the lower limbs of the trees it was arrested with shock thatreverbe- rated along all his nerves by the ap- pearance of two burning, round spots set in the darkness not a dozen feet from where he stood and a trifie high CT than the level of his head. He stared at them and his fingers mechan- ica1ly sought the lock of his rifle. Then, as he studied the spots. he was able to trace the vague outline of a thing perched upon the limb of tree. He laughed boisterously. Only an owl Ito be frightened by an owli He felt a flush of cha grin chasing the pallor away from his cheeks.
 All right, old fellow" he ejacuIated; You've got the laugh on me, but guess
 The brave sentence was not finished because. with his first step forward, another pair of dull red coals confront ! 1r-ifb