e walls of the canyon. After that came a great
splashing that died away suddenly, and there was only the hoarse roar
of the river pouring through the newly opened gap. Laura turned and
handed the box to Nasmyth.

"Now," she said, "I have done my part, and I am only sorry that it is
such a trifling one."

Nasmyth looked at her with a gleam in his eyes.

He answered softly: "You are behind it all. It is due to you that I am
making some attempt to use the little power in my possession, instead
of letting it melt away."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DERRICK

A bitter frost had crept down from the snow-clad heights that shut the
canyon in, and the roar of the river had fallen to a lower tone, when
Nasmyth stood one morning shivering close by the door of his rude log
shanty at the foot of the gully. The faint grey light was growing
slightly clearer, and he could see the clustering spruces, in the
hollow, gleam spectrally where their dark masses were streaked with
delicate silver filigree. Across the river there was a dull glimmer
from the wall of rock, which the freezing spray had covered with a
glassy crust. Though it had not been long exposed to the nipping
morning air, Nasmyth felt his damp deer-hide jacket slowly stiffening,
and the edge of the sleeves, which had been wet through the day
before, commenced to rasp his raw and swollen wrists.

He stood still for a minute or two listening to the river and
stretching himself wearily, for his back and shoulders ached, and
there was a distressful stiffness in most of his joints that had
resulted from exposure, in spray-drenched clothing, to the stinging
frost. This, however, did not greatly trouble him, since he had long
realized that physical discomfort must be disregarded if the work was
to be carried on. Men, for the most part, toil strenuously in that
wild land. Indeed, it is only by the tensest effort of which flesh and
blood are capable that the wilderness is broken to man's domination,
for throughout much of it costly mechanical appliances have not as yet
displaced well-hardened muscle.

In most cases the Bushman who buys a forest ranch has scarcely any
money left when he has made the purchase. He finds the land covered
with two-hundred-feet firs, which must be felled, and sawn up, and
rolled into piles for burning by his own hand, and only those who have
handled trees of that kind can form any clear conception of the labour
such work entails. It is a long time