umbia. The boom of a hidden river set the pine sprays
quivering. A blue grouse was drumming deliriously on the top of a
stately fir, and the morning sun drew clean, healing odors from balsam
and cedar.

The scene was characteristic of what is now the grandest and wildest,
as it will some day be the richest, province of the Canadian Dominion.
The serene majesty of snow-clad heights and the grandeur of vast
shadowy aisles, with groined roofs of red branches and mighty
colonnades of living trunks, were partly lost upon the traveler who,
most of the preceding night, had trudged wearily over rough railroad
ballast. He had acquired Colonial experience of the hardest kind by
working through the winter in an Ontario logging camp, which is a rough
school.

An hour earlier the man, to visit whom Thurston had undertaken an
eight-league journey, had laughed in his face when he offered to drain
a lake which flooded his ranch. Saying nothing, but looking grimmer
than ever, Geoffrey had continued his weary journey in search of
sustenance. He frowned as he flung himself down beneath a fir, for,
shimmering like polished steel between the giant trees, the glint of
water caught his eye, and the blue wood smoke curling over the house on
a distant slope suggested the usual plentiful Colonial breakfast.

Although Geoffrey's male forbears had been reckless men, his mother had
transmitted him a strain of north-country canniness. The remnant of
his poor possessions, converted into currency, lay in a Canadian bank
to provide working capital and, finding no scope for his mental
abilities, he had wandered here and there endeavoring to sell the
strength of his body for daily bread. Sometimes he had been
successful, more often he had failed, but always, when he would accept
it, the kindly bush settlers gave him freely of their best. As he
basked in the warmth and brightness, he took from his pocket a few
cents' worth of crackers. When he had eaten, his face relaxed, for the
love of wild nature was born in him, and the glorious freshness of the
spring was free to the poorest as well as to the richest. He stooped
to drink at a glacier-fed rill, and then producing a corn-cob pipe,
sighed on finding that only the tin label remained of his cake of
tobacco.

Through the shadow of the firs two young women watched him with
curiosity. The man looked worn and weary, his jean jacket was old and
torn, and an essential portion of one boot was mis