by, and they ran out again into the
silent waste. Prescott was conscious of a continuous jolting which shook
him to and fro; he thought he heard a confused altercation among his
companions at the end of the car, and the clang of wheels and the shaking
rails rang in measured cadence in his ears. Then the sounds died away and
he fell into a heavy sleep.

It was noon the next day when he alighted, aching all over, where the
line ran into a deep hollow between fir-clad hills. A stream came
flashing through the gorge and at the mouth of it shacks and tents and
small frame houses straggled up a rise, with a wooden church behind them.
Farther up, the hollow was filled with somber conifers, and the hills
above it ran back, ridge beyond ridge, into the distance. Then, looking
very high and far away, a vast chain of snowy summits was etched against
a sky of softest blue. Those that caught the light gleamed with silvery
brightness, but part of the great range lay in shadow, steeped in varying
hues of ethereal gray. From north to south, as far as the eye could
follow, the serrated line of crag and peak swept on majestically.

Tired as he was, Prescott felt the impressiveness of the spectacle; but
he had other things to think about, and slipping away from the railroad
hands, he turned toward a rude frame hotel which stood among the firs
beside the river. Rows of tall stumps spread about it, farther back lay
rows of logs, diffusing a sweet resinous fragrance. Through a gap between
the towering trunks one looked up the wild, forest-shrouded gorge, and
the litter of old provision cans, general refuse, and discarded boots
could not spoil the beauty of the scene. Prescott asked for a room; and
sitting outside after dinner, he gathered from some men, who were not
working, the story of Kermode's next exploit. Their accounts of it were
terse and somewhat disconnected, but Prescott was afterward able to
amplify them from the narrative of a more cultured person.

* * * * *

Kermode had been unloading rails all day, and he was standing on the
veranda one evening when a supply train from the east was due. It
appeared that he had renewed his wardrobe at the local store and
invariably changed his clothes when his work was finished. This was
looked upon as a very unusual thing, and his companions thought it even
more curious that he had not been known to enter the bar of the hotel;
its proprietor was