tances, of great heights. It stood forth clothed
with the dignity of massiveness, of permanence. It was as it had been
for centuries, calm and untroubled, unmoved by floods and slides, by
fires and slow glacial changes. Yes, it was beautiful and Hollister
looked a long time, for he was not sure he would see it again. He had
a canoe and a tent cached in that silent valley, but for these alone
he would not return. Neither the ownership of that timber which he now
esteemed of doubtful value nor the event of its sale would require his
presence there.

He continued to stare with an absent look in his eyes until a crook in
the Inlet hid those white escarpments and outstanding peaks, and the
Inlet walls--themselves lifting to dizzy heights that were shrouded in
rolling mist--marked the limit of his visual range. The ship's bell
tinkled the noon hour. A white-jacketed steward walked the decks,
proclaiming to all and sundry that luncheon was being served.
Hollister made his way to the dining saloon.

The steamer was past Salmon Bay when he returned above decks to lean
on the rail, watching the shores flit by, marking with a little wonder
the rapid change in temperature, the growing mildness in the air as
the steamer drew farther away from the gorge-like head of Toba with
its aerial ice fields and snowy slopes. Twenty miles below Salmon Bay
the island-dotted area of the Gulf of Georgia began. There a snowfall
seldom endured long, and the teeth of the frost were blunted by
eternal rains. There the logging camps worked full blast the year
around, in sunshine and drizzle and fog. All that region bordering on
the open sea bore a more genial aspect and supported more people and
industries in scattered groups than could be found in any of those
lonely inlets.

Hollister was not thinking particularly of these things. He had eaten
his meal at a table with half a dozen other men. In the saloon
probably two score others applied themselves, with more diligence than
refinement, to their food. There was a leavening of women in this male
mass of loggers, fishermen, and what-not. A buzz of conversation
filled the place. But Hollister was not a participant. He observed
casual, covert glances at his disfigured face, that disarrangement of
his features and marring of his flesh which made men ill at ease in
his presence. He felt a recurrence of the old protest against this. He
experienced a return of that depression which had driven him out of