hen they had tapped midway the bed
of the main creek.

He rested his pack on a jutting rock, slipped the head-strap, and sat
down. Li Wan joined him, and the dogs sprawled panting on the ground
beside them. At their feet rippled the glacial drip of the hills, but
it was muddy and discolored, as if soiled by some commotion of the
earth.

"Why is this?" Li Wan asked.

"Because of the white men who work in the ground. Listen!" He held up
his hand, and they heard the ring of pick and shovel, and the sound of
men's voices. "They are made mad by _gold_, and work without ceasing
that they may find it. _Gold?_ It is yellow and comes from the ground,
and is considered of great value. It is also a measure of price."

But Li Wan's roving eyes had called her attention from him. A few
yards below and partly screened by a clump of young spruce, the tiered
logs of a cabin rose to meet its overhanging roof of dirt. A thrill
ran through her, and all her dream-phantoms roused up and stirred
about uneasily.

"Canim," she whispered in an agony of apprehension. "Canim, what is
that?"

"The white man's teepee, in which he eats and sleeps."

She eyed it wistfully, grasping its virtues at a glance and thrilling
again at the unaccountable sensations it aroused. "It must be very
warm in time of frost," she said aloud, though she felt that she must
make strange sounds with her lips.

She felt impelled to utter them, but did not, and the next instant
Canim said, "It is called a _cabin_."

Her heart gave a great leap. The sounds! the very sounds! She looked
about her in sudden awe. How should she know that strange word before
ever she heard it? What could be the matter? And then with a shock,
half of fear and half of delight, she realized that for the first time
in her life there had been sanity and significance in the promptings
of her dreams.

"_Cabin_" she repeated to herself. "_Cabin._" An incoherent flood of
dream-stuff welled up and up till her head was dizzy and her
heart seemed bursting. Shadows, and looming bulks of things, and
unintelligible associations fluttered and whirled about, and she
strove vainly with her consciousness to grasp and hold them. For
she felt that there, in that welter of memories, was the key of the
mystery; could she but grasp and hold it, all would be clear and
plain--

O Canim! O Pow-Wah-Kaan! O shades and shadows, what was that?

She turned to Canim, speechless and trembling, the dream-stuff in m