noon
The warm September sun had dropped behind the western peaks , and the canyons were purpling with oncoming twilight , when two quick successive shots broke the evening stillness , and echoed like a salute of twenty-one guns far down the valley . Mrs. Delorme ran once again to the door . The shots could not have been five hundred yards distant , for down through the firs came Royal , the magnificent hound , whining and grinning and licking his mouth with delight , and , behind him , Maurice , shouting that he had killed a deer , and was hungry enough to eat half of it himself . `` And , mother , '' he cried , `` I could have got the game at noon to-day , but Royal and I have been hours and hours closing in on him , getting him into the runway , so that , when I did drop him , it would be near home , for I could never pack his carcass all that way . He must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds . Oh , but he 's a fat one . And here are some mountain grouse Roy and I got .