lest mountain peaks had already
caught the first shafts of its virgin glory. The valleys were still
robed in semi-darkness, and the two wayfarers seemed like mere spectres
as they sped forward.

"My, this is great!" Reynolds exclaimed as he at length stopped to
readjust his pack. "I believe I should live to be a hundred or over if
I could breathe air like this all the time. It's a fine tonic."

"It sure is," Samson agreed, as he laid aside his rifle and pulled out
his pipe. "Not much like the smell of yer city streets, whar ye
swaller hundreds of disease germs every second."

"Have you ever lived there?" Reynolds asked, curious to learn something
of the old man's history.

"Long enough to know what they're like. I've poked me nose into a good
many cities, an' they're all the same, to my way of thinkin'. It's a
wonder to me why so many people live in sich places, crowded, together
like sheep, when thar's all this, an' millions of places like it, whar
ye kin breathe the air as the Lord made it, an' not fouled by the work
of human bein's."

"You are very fond of this wild life, I see," Reynolds replied. "Have
you lived here many years?"

The prospector threw aside his burnt match, gave his pack an extra
hitch, picked up his rifle and moved forward.

"Guess we'd better git on," he said. "Thar's a little brook we want to
reach in time fer dinner. Ye don't find much water in these valleys."

Reynolds moved along by his companion's side, wondering why he did not
answer his question. It was not until they were eating their dinner by
the side of the brook did Samson vouchsafe any information.

"Ye asked me if I've been long in this country," he began. "My reply
may seem strange to you, but it's true. Judgin' by years, I've been
here a long time, but, accordin' to life, only a little while. I uster
reckon things by years, but I don't do that any longer."

"No?" Reynolds looked quizzically at his companion.

"I don't count time by years, young man, an' the sooner ye larn to do
the same the better it'll be fer ye. In the cities ye find clocks an'
watches everywhere, an' they all remind people that time is passin'.
Ye kin hardly walk along a street hut ye'll see funeral processions,
an' the doctors are busy with the sick. Big hospitals are crowded with
patients, an' accidents happen every minute of the day. These all tell
that life is brief an' unsartin. The feelin' gits in the blood an' on
the nerves