from
himself and his imaginings into the dazzling embrace of the sun.

He tramped to the gang at work above the Little Bijou Chute, where
they raced the logs to the iron-hard ice of the river's surface far
below. He even took a hand with the axe, was laughed at, and watched
the precision and power of the Jacks as they clove, swung, and lopped.
From the cliff he looked down at the long bunk-house, saw the blue
smoke rising straight, curled at the top like the uncoiling frond of a
new fern-leaf. Saw the Chinese cook, in his wadded coat of blue,
disappear into the snow-covered mound that hid the provision shack,
and watched the bounding pups refusing to be broken into harness by
Siwash George. It was all very simple, very real, and the twists of
his tired mind relaxed; his nervous hands came to rest in the warm
depths of his mackinaw pockets. The peace of sunned spaces and
flowing, clean air soothed his mind and heart.

The blue shadows lengthened. The gang knocked off work. The last log
was rushed down the satin ice of the chute to leap over its fellows at
the foot. The smell of bacon sifted through the odours of evergreen
branches and new-cut wood. Crossman declined a cordial invitation to
join the gang at chuck. He must be getting back, he explained, "for
chow at the Boss's."

Whistling, he entered the office, stirred up the fire, and crossed to
the cook-house. It was empty. The charcoal fire was out. Shivering, he
rebuilt it, looked through the larder, and hacked off a ragged slice
of jerked venison. A film of fear rose in his soul. What if they were
_really_ gone? What if Antoine _had_ taken her? It looked like it. His
heart sank. Not to see her again! Not to feel her strange, thrilling
presence! Not to sense that indomitable, insolent soul, throwing its
challenge before it as it walked through the world!

Crossman came out, returned to the office, busied himself in tidying
the living room and solving the disorder of his desk. The twilight
sifted over wood and hill, crept from under the forest arches, and
spread across the snow of the open. He lit the lamps and waited. The
silence was complete. It seemed as if the night had come and closed
the world, locking it away out of the reach even of God.

The meal Crossman had bunglingly prepared lay untouched on the table.
Now and then the crash of an avalanche of snow from the overburdened
branches emphasized the stillness. Dreading he knew not what, Crossman
waited--a