day's march nearer home.

"Say, Mrs. Trevor, you don't know my name yet. It's Smith, and with my
friends I'm mostly Jesse."

"If you please, may I be one of your friends?"

"If I behave good, you may. No harm in my trying."

From behind us the sun flung beams of golden splendor and blue tree
shadows, which went over the rim-rock into the misty depths of the
abyss. Down there the Fraser roared. Beyond on the eastern side soared a
vast precipice of gold and mauve which at an infinite height above our
heads was crested with black pines. Level with our bench land that
amazing cliff was cut transversely by a shelf of delicate verdure, with
here and there black groves of majestic pines. Nearly opposite, half
hidden by the trees, perched a log cabin, in form and in its exquisite
proportion like some old Greek temple.

"And that is where you live?"

The moment Jesse Smith had given me his name, I knew him well by
reputation. Comments by Surly Brown, the ferryman, and my husband's
bitter hatred had outlined a dangerous character. Nobody else lived
within a day's journey.

"That's my home," said Jesse. "D'ye see a dim trail jags down that upper
cliff? That's whar I drifted my ponies down when I came in from the
States. I didn't know of the wagon road from Hundred Mile House to the
ferry, which runs by the north end of my ranch."

"Your house," I said, "always reminds me of an eagle's aerie."

"Wall, it's better'n that. Feed, water, shelter, timber, and squatter's
rights is good enough to make a poor man's ranch."

"And the tremendous grandeur of the place?"

"Hum. I don't claim to have been knocked all in a heap with the scenery.
A thousand-foot wall and a hundred-foot gulch is big enough for dimples,
and saves fencing. But if you left this district in one of them Arizona
canyons over night, it would get mislaid.

"No. What took holt of me good and hard was the company,--a silver-tip
b'ar and his missus, both thousand pounders, with their three young
ladies, now mar'ied and settled beyond the sky-line. There's two couples
of prime eagles still camps along thar by South Cave. The timber wolf I
trimmed out because he wasted around like a remittance man. Thar was a
stallion and his harem, this yere fool Jones bein' one of his young
mares. El Senor Don Cougar and his senora lived here, too, until they
went into the sheep business with Surly Brown's new flock. Besides
that, there was heaps of lil' friendly folks in fur,