Publisher's Synopsis
Accidentally overhearing a plot to kidnap the niece of a prominent rancher as she arrives from the East, Milt Dale springs into action. He comes out of his splendid isolation to protect Helen and her kid sister, Bo. Leading them away from manmade danger, exposing them to unaccustomed rigor on mountain trails, Dale imparts his rugged philosophy. Beyond the forest, Beasley and Snake Anson are still waiting to carry out their evil plot.At sunset hour the forest was still, lonely, sweet with tang of fir and spruce, blazing in gold and red and green; and the man who glided on under the great trees seemed to blend with the colors and, disappearing, to have become a part of the wild woodland.Old Baldy, highest of the White Mountains, stood up round and bare, rimmed bright gold in the last glow of the setting sun. Then, as the fire dropped behind the domed peak, a change, a cold and darkening blight, passed down the black spear-pointed slopes over all that mountain world.It was a wild, richly timbered, and abundantly watered region of dark forests and grassy parks, ten thousand feet above sea-level, isolated on all sides by the southern Arizona desert-the virgin home of elk and deer, of bear and lion, of wolf and fox, and the birthplace as well as the hiding-place of the fierce Apache.
