, and it's a
good thing for us it does, or I'd have frozen or starved to death in
this valley. That quotation may not be strictly correct, but I mean
well."

The Little Giant seized his hand and shook it violently. It was evident
that the stranger was one whom he admired and liked.

"Ef we'd knowed it wuz you callin', Steve Brady," he said, "we'd hev
come sooner. But hev you found that huge beaver colony you say is
somewhar in the northwestern mountings, the biggest colony the world hez
ever knowed?"

"I have not, Tom Bent. 'Search and ye shall find' says the Book, and I
have searched years and years, but I have never found. If I had found,
you would not see me here in this valley, a frozen man with three frozen
horses, and I ask you, Tom Bent, if you have ever yet discovered a
particle of the gold for which you've been looking all the years since
you were a boy."

"Not a speck, Steve, not a speck of it. If I had I wouldn't be here. I'd
be in old St. Looey, the grandest city in the world, stoppin' in the
finest room at the Planters' House, an' tilted back in a rockin' chair
pickin' my teeth with a gold tooth pick, after hevin' et a dinner that
cost a hull five dollars. But you come into our house, Steve, an' warm
up an' eat hot food, while Young William, here, takes your hosses to the
stable, an' quite a good hoss boy is young William, too."

"House! Fire! Food! Stable! What do you mean?"

"Jest what I say. These are my friends, Thomas Boyd and William Clarke,
young William. Boys, this is Stephen Brady, who has been a fur hunter
all his life but who hasn't been findin' much o' late. Come on, Steve."

Will took the three horses and led them to the stable, into which he
pushed them without much trouble, and where they received a fair
welcome. He also threw them a quantity of the hay, and then he ran back
to the house, where Boyd and Bent were rapidly fanning the coals into a
blaze and were warming food. Brady's outer garments were steaming before
the fire, and he was sitting on a stone outcrop, a look of solemn
satisfaction on his face.

"It is truly a habitation in the wilderness," he said, "and friends the
best and bravest in the world. It is more, far more, than I, a lone fur
hunter, had a right to expect. Truly it is more than any humble mortal
such as I had a right to hope for. But as the sun stood still over
Gibeon, and as the moon stood still over the vale of Ajalon at the
command of Joshua, so the wilder