onsequence, all hazard was
ignored. The man's simple hardihood was the whole of him. He had been
bred in the rough lap of the four winds at his father's side. He would
have smothered under the breath of caution.

He set out from the camp at the moment he had carefully selected. He
set out alone, without a thought for the chances of disaster which the
night might have for him. His eyes were alight with satisfaction, with
anticipation. Invincible determination inspired him as he faced the
hill which had served the Indian earlier in the day. He moved off with
a swing to his great body which said all that his lips had left
unspoken of the confidence which at all times supported him in the
battle with elemental forces.

When he left the camp the blackness of the night had given way to the
jewel-studded velvet of a clearing sky. The spectre lights of the
north were already dancing their sombre measure. There was no moon.
These things all possessed their significance for him.

The shadowy night light, however, only served him in the open, in the
breaks in the deep woodlands he must thread. For the rest his
woodcraft, even his instinct, must serve him. A general line of
direction was in his mind. On that alone he must seriously depend.
His difficulties were tremendous. They must have been insurmountable
for a man of lesser capacity. But the realization of difficulty was a
sense he seemed to lack. It was sufficient that a task lay before him
for the automatic effort to be forthcoming.

He climbed the hill through endless aisles of straight-limbed timber.
His gait was rapid. His deep, regular breathing spoke of an effort
which cost him little. His muscles were as hard as the tree-trunks
with which he frequently collided. And so he came to the barren crest
where the fierce night wind bit deeply into the warm flesh.

He only paused for his bearings. The stars and the dancing lights
yielded him the guidance he needed. He read these signs with the ease
of an experienced mariner. Then, crushing his soft beaver cap low down
over his ears, and buttoning his pea-jacket about his neck, he left the
bitter, wind-swept hilltop and plunged down the terrific slope, at the
far-off bottom of which lay the river, whose very name had cast a spell
of terror over the hearts of the people of the northland.

Again he was swallowed up by the dark bowels of the woods, whose origin
went back to the days before man trod the eart