it began to take on a new character. The peak of it was
in the form of a mighty castle that changed as he advanced. And the two
lesser peaks were forming into definite contours. Before the haze of
twilight dimmed his vision, he knew that what he had seen was not a
whimsical invention of his imagination. The Watcher had grown into the
shape of a mighty human head facing south. A restless excitement
possessed him, and he traveled on long after dusk. At dawn he was on
the trail again. Westward the sky cleared, and suddenly he stopped, and
a cry came from him.

The Watcher's head was there, as if chiseled by the hands of giants.
The two smaller peaks had unveiled their mystery. Startling and weird,
their crests had taken on the form of human heads. One of them was
looking north. The other faced the valley. And Kent, his heart
pounding, cried to himself,

"The Silent Men!"

He did not hear himself, but the thought itself was a tumultuous thing
within him. It came upon him like an inundation, a sudden and thrilling
inspiration backed by the forces of a visual truth. THE VALLEY OF
SILENT MEN. He repeated the words, staring at the three colossal heads
in the sky. Somewhere near them, under them,--one side or the
other--was Marette's hidden valley!

He went on. A strange joy consumed him. In it, at times, his grief was
obliterated, and it seemed to him in these moments that Marette must
surely be at the valley to greet him when he came to it. But always the
tragedy of the Death Chute came back to him, and with it the thought
that the three giant heads were watching--and would always watch--for a
beloved lost one who would never return. As the sun went down that day,
the face bowed to the valley seemed alive with the fire of a living
question sent directly to Kent.

"Where is she?" it asked. "Where is she? Where is she?"

That night Kent did not sleep.

The next day there lay ahead of him a low and broken range, the first
of the deeper mountains. He climbed this steadily, and at noon had
reached the crest. And he knew that at last he was looking down into
the Valley of Silent Men. It was not a wide valley, like the other. On
the far side of it, three or four miles away, rose the huge mountain
whose face was looking down upon the green meadows at its foot.
Southward Kent could see for a long distance, and in the vivid sunlight
he saw the shimmer of creeks and little lakes, and the rich glow of
thick patches of cedar and