Eleanor H. Porter

“ Big, flaring posters, scattered far and wide, offered a reward of two thousand dollars. "Dead or alive," the posters read, but no one expected that the man would be anything but dead when the boys had finished with him. It had been a particularly atrocious murder, and the added charge of horse-stealing had not helped matters. Indeed, horses were more valuable than men in Beaver Creek.
Bill Haydon, the man whose name trailed across the posters in huge black letters, was comparatively a newcomer. ”

“ A leaf fluttered slowly down, and glinted like gold in the flickering sunlight. A bird chirped softly, and was answered from a neighboring tree. Then to the right sounded the rustling swish of dry leaves and the sharp snapping of a twig. There was some one else in the forest. ”

“ One, two, three days passed, and Haydon had not been found. Most of the searchers went hack to Beaver Creek and to work, but a few still kept up the hunt. Among these last was Jim Thatcher, at the head of a little company of men on the north side of the mountain. Jim was at the edge of a small opening in the forest when he found that he had out-distanced his companions, and was alone. ”