smell of it emanated from
the white, pale-yellow, and pink fungi that flourished on the soaked
and ancient logs along the way. He heard the voice of it in the soft
murmuring of the South Fork of the Eel, which went twinkling down Bear
Valley through firs and redwoods straight as telegraph poles; in the
caress of the soft south wind soughing in the tree-tops. Chipmunks and
gray squirrels darted across his path.

A quarter of a mile from Wharton Bixler's store he turned off on a
narrow road which led into the deeper forest. He passed through groves
of redwoods which towered three hundred feet above him, and whose girth
was over sixty feet. A half mile more the old man trudged on sturdily,
muttering occasionally to himself. Then he struck a cross trail which
paralleled Ripley Creek, and this he followed into the sunshine of an
open spot.

Across this, through thickets of whitethorn, manzanita, alder, and bay
he limped along, following deer trails. The deeper forest was left
behind in the lowlands. A grass-grown bark road, which he eventually
found, followed the creek, ascending sharply through shade and
sunshine, crossing and recrossing the creek on wooden bridges,
twisting, always climbing.

On one of the bridges Uncle Sebastian Burris halted. A great snarl of
bleached driftwood had collected just above the bridge, and through it
the clear water roared in a dozen tiny cataracts. Beyond the drift
Uncle Sebastian had caught a glimpse of some living, moving object. He
wiped his watery blue eyes with a red handkerchief, looked once more,
then crossed the bridge and wound through a thicket of huckleberry
bushes till abreast the drift.

A little later he was peering down a steep bank into the
boulder-studded bottom of Ripley Creek, where lay a fine young specimen
of the genus homo idly tossing pebbles into the crystal water. A smile
half sardonic grew in the features of Uncle Sebastian as he stood
looking down at him.

The youth, unconscious of the presence of another, kept on idly tossing
the pebbles, recumbent on one elbow. His long sinewy legs were incased
in slick jean trousers of stovepipe lines and stiffness. He wore no
coat. A faded blue shirt covered his barrel of a body, and his slouch
hat was off, exposing long, light, wiry hair and a freckled neck. His
lean jaws were covered by a two weeks' growth of beard. About him
drooped hazels and alders. From one end to the other Ripley Creek was
beauti