dicular for a thousand feet above
their heads. A dark and solemn gloom pervaded this chasm, and Aldous drew
nearer to MacDonald, his rifle held in readiness, and his bridle-rein
fastened to his saddle-horn. The chasm was short. Sunlight burst upon them
suddenly, and a few minutes later MacDonald waited for them again.

Even Aldous could not restrain an exclamation of surprise when he rode up
with Joanne. Under them was another valley, a wide-sweeping valley between
two rugged ranges that ran to the southwest. Up out of it there came to
their ears a steady, rumbling roar; the air was filled with that roar; the
earth seemed to tremble with it under their feet--and yet it was not loud.
It came sullenly, as if from a great distance.

And then they saw that MacDonald was not looking out over the sweep of the
valley, but down. Half a mile under them there was a dip--a valley within a
valley--and through it ran the silver sheen of a stream. MacDonald spoke no
word now. He dismounted and levelled his long telescope at the little
valley. Aldous helped Joanne from her horse, and they waited. A great
breath came at last from the old hunter. Slowly he turned. He did not give
the telescope to Aldous, but to Joanne. She looked. For a full minute she
seemed scarcely to breathe. Her hands trembled when she turned to give the
glass to Aldous.

"I see--log cabins!" she whispered.

MacDonald placed a detaining hand on her arm.

"Look ag'in--Joanne," he said in a low voice that had in it a curious
quiver.

Again she raised the telescope to her eyes.

"You see the little cabin--nearest the river?" whispered Donald.

"Yes, I see it."

"That was our cabin--Jane's an' mine--forty years ago," he said, and now
his voice was husky.

Joanne's breath broke sobbingly as she gave Aldous the glass. Something
seemed to choke him as he looked down upon the scene of the grim tragedy
in which Donald MacDonald and Jane had played their fatal part. He saw the
cabins as they had stood for nearly half a century. There were four. Three
of them were small, and the fourth was large. They might have been built
yesterday, for all that he could see of ruin or decay. The doors and
windows of the larger cabin and two of the smaller ones were closed. The
roofs were unbroken. The walls appeared solid. Twice he looked at the
fourth cabin, with its wide-open door and window, and twice he looked at
the cabin nearest the stream, where had lived Donald MacDonald