ng do you think you'll be
gone?"

"Can't say, precisely. Three or four days, I presume, but don't
you worry unless it's a full week."

It was characteristic of the strength and self-restraint acquired
by the two that they parted with these words and a hand clasp
only, yet both had deep feeling. Dick looked back from the mouth
of the cleft toward Castle Howard and saw a boy in front of it
waving a cap. He waved his own in reply and then went forward
more swiftly down the valley.

It did not take him long to reach the first slope, and, when he
had ascended a little, he paused for rest and inspection. Spring
had really made considerable progress. All the trees except the
evergreens had put forth young leaves and, as he looked toward
the north, the mountains unrolled like a vast green blanket that
swept away in ascending folds until it ended, and then the peaks
and ridges, white with snow, began.

Dick climbed father, and their valley was wholly lost to sight.
It was not so wonderful after all that nobody came to it.
Trappers who knew of it long ago never returned, believing that
the beaver were all gone forever, and it was too near to the
warlike Sioux of the plains for mountain Indians to make a home
there.

Dick did not stop long for the look backward--he was too intent
upon his mission--but resumed the ascent with light foot and
light heart. He remembered very well the way in which he and
Albert had come, and he followed it on the return. All night,
with his buffalo robe about him, he slept in the pine alcove that
had been the temporary home of Albert and himself. He could see
no change in it in all the months, except traces to show that
some wild animal had slept there.

"Maybe you'll come to-night, Mr. Bear or Mr. Mountain Lion, to
sleep in your little bed." said Dick as he lay down in his
buffalo robe, "but you'll find me here before you."

He was wise enough to know that neither bear nor mountain lion
would ever molest him, and he slept soundly. He descended the
last slopes and came in sight of the plains on the afternoon
of the next day. Everything seemed familiar. The events of
that fatal time had made too deep an impression upon him and
Albert ever to be forgotten. He knew the very rocks and trees
and so went straight to the valley in which he had found the
wagon filled with supplies. It lay there yet, crumpled
somewhat by time and the weight of snow that had fallen upon it
during the wi