t was my guess, for we saw
nobody. But I had a feeling. Never mind. At last we come to the Peace
River. It was in the early autumn like this, when the land is full of
comfort. What is there like it? Nothing. The mountains have colours like
a girl's eyes; the smell of the trees is sweet like a child's breath,
and the grass feels for the foot and lifts it with a little soft spring.
We said we could live here for ever. We built this house high up, as you
see, first, because it is good to live high--it puts life in the blood;
and, as Gordineer said, it is noble to look far over the world, every
time your house-door is open, or the parchment is down from the window.
We killed wapiti and caribou without number, and cached them for
our food. We caught fish in the river, and made tea out of the brown
berry--it is very good. We had flour, a little, which we had brought
with us, and I went to Fort St. John and got more. Since then, down in
the valley, I have wheat every summer; for the Chinook winds blow across
the mountains and soften the bitter cold.

"Well, for that journey to Fort St. John. When I got back I found Gawdor
with Gordineer. He said he had come north to hunt. His Indian had left,
and he had lost his way. Gordineer believed him. He never lied himself.
I said nothing, but watched. After a time he asked where the gold-field
was. I told him, and he started away--it was about fifty miles to the
north. He went, and on his way back he come here. He say he could not
find the place, and was going south. I know he lied. At this time I saw
that Gordineer was changed. He was slow in the head, and so, when he
began thinking up here, it made him lonely. It is always in a fine land
like this, where game is plenty, and the heart dances for joy in your
throat, and you sit by the fire--that you think of some woman who would
be glad to draw in and tie the strings of the tent-curtain, or fasten
the latch of the door upon you two alone."

Perhaps some memory stirred within the old man, other than that of his
dead comrade, for he sighed, muffled his mouth in his beard, and then
smiled in a distant way at the fire. The pure truth of what he said came
home to Shon M'Gann and Sir Duke Lawless; for both, in days gone by,
had sat at camp-fires in silent plains, and thought upon women from whom
they believed they were parted for ever, yet who were only kept from
them for a time, to give them happier days. They were thinking of these
two wom