oken
outlines of it he read the distorted features of some baleful, living
creature, or some savage idol. But there was no answer here to the
questions of his mind, any more than there had been on the rest of the
plateau, so he rode on along the edge of the water.

He reached the extreme end of the lake and paused again. He could go
no farther, for nothing but a rocky parapet, less than twenty feet
wide, barred the waters from tumbling headlong to the depths below.

After a moment Caesar grew restless, his equine nerves seemed to be on
a jangle, and the steadying hand of his master had no effect. His eyes
were wistful and dilated, and he glanced distrustfully from side to
side, snorting loudly his evident alarm. Buck moved him away from his
proximity to the water, and turned to a critical survey of the remoter
crests of the Rocky Mountains.

The white snowcaps had gone. The purple of the lesser hills, usually
so delicate in their gradings, were lost in one monotony of dull red
light. The nearer distance was a mere world of ghostly shadows tinged
with the same threatening hue, and only the immediate neighborhood was
in any way clean cut and sharp to the eye. His brows drew together in
perplexity. Again, down there in the valley, beyond the brink of the
plateau, the dull red fog prevailed, and yet through it he could see
the dim picture of grass-land, of woods, of river, and the rising
slopes of more hills beyond.

No, the secret of the atmospheric phenomenon was not up here, and it
was useless to waste more time. So he moved off, much to his impatient
horse's relief, in a direction where he knew a gentle slope would lead
him from the hilltop to the neighborhood of the old farm and the ford
across Yellow Creek.

But even this way the road required negotiation, for the same bald
rocks and barrenness offered no sure foothold. However, Caesar was used
to this path, and made no mistakes. His master gave him his head, and,
with eyes to the ground, the sure-footed beast moved along with almost
cat-like certainty. At last the soft soil of the valley was reached
again, and once more the deepening woods swallowed them up.

The end of Buck's journey lay across Yellow Creek, where a few
miserable hovels sheltered a small community of starving gold-seekers,
and thither he now hastened. On his way he had a distant view of the
old farm. He would have preferred to have avoided it, but that was
quite impossible. He had not yet got