Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/334



HE day was crisp, clear and sunshiny, Alden strove to shake off the feelings that oppressed him. He knew he was not treating his hospitable friends right, for they had shown him every courtesy, as they would have done had he chosen to spend weeks at the mail station; Cal invited him to go on a hunting excursion after the midday meal. Ordinarily the youth would have accepted eagerly, but his mood forced him to decline.

Inasmuch as he had had plenty of sleep, he could get no more. He strolled about the open space, pausing now and then to survey through his glasses the snowy peaks which towered far into the sky to the westward, or at the lower hills to the north, where the gnarled pine, the dwarfed cedar, the rushing torrents and the gorges made up one of the many wild regions which abound over thousands of square miles of area. Abundance of game was there 320