his breath.
Joanne and the old hunter were riding side by side in the creek bottom, and
Joanne was talking. He looked at his watch. He did not look at it again
until the first gaunt, red shoulder of the sandstone mountain began to loom
over them. An hour had passed since he left Joanne. Ahead of him, perhaps a
mile distant, was the cragged spur beyond which--according to the sketch
Keller had drawn for him at the engineers' camp--was the rough canyon
leading back to the basin on the far side of the mountain. He had almost
reached this when MacDonald rode up.

"You go back, Johnny," he said, a singular softness in his hollow voice.
"We're a'most there."

He cast his eyes over the western peaks, where dark clouds were shouldering
their way up in the face of the sun, and added:

"There's rain in that. I'll trot on ahead with Pinto and have a tent ready
when you come. I reckon it can't be more'n a mile up the canyon."

"And the grave, Mac?"

"Is right close to where I'll pitch the tent," said MacDonald, swinging
suddenly behind the pack-horse Pinto, and urging him into a trot. "Don't
waste any time, Johnny."

Aldous rode back to Joanne.

"It looks like rain," he explained. "These Pacific showers come up quickly
this side of the Divide, and they drench you in a jiffy. Donald is going on
ahead to put up a tent."

By the time they reached the mouth of the canyon MacDonald was out of
sight. A little creek that was a swollen torrent in spring time trickled
out of the gorge. Its channel was choked with a chaotic confusion of
sandstone rock and broken slate, and up through this Aldous carefully
picked his way, followed closely by Joanne. The sky continued to darken
above them, until at last the sun died out, and a thick and almost palpable
gloom began to envelop them. Low thunder rolled through the mountains in
sullen, rumbling echoes. He looked back at Joanne, and was amazed to see
her eyes shining, and a smile on her lips as she nodded at him.

"It makes me think of Henrik Hudson and his ten-pin players," she called
softly. "And ahead of us--is Rip Van Winkle!"

The first big drops were beginning to fall when they came to an open place.
The gorge swung to the right; on their left the rocks gave place to a
rolling meadow of buffalo grass, and Aldous knew they had reached the
basin. A hundred yards up the slope was a fringe of timber, and as he
looked he saw smoke rising out of this. The sound of MacDonald's axe came