tch, and gone again beyond the
range of powerful glasses.

"The Athabasca regiment, 13th Battalion," remarked the British Military
Observer; "lively and rather noisy."

"Really," observed his A. D. C.

"Sturdy, half-disciplined beggars," continued the B. M. O., watching the
mountain plank through his glasses; "every variety of adventurer in their
ranks--cattlemen, ranchmen, Hudson Bay trappers, North West police,
lumbermen, mail carriers, bear hunters, Indians, renegade frontiersmen,
soldiers of fortune--a sweet lot, Algy."

"Ow."

"--And half of 'em unruly Yankees--the most objectionable half, you know."

"A bad lot," remarked the Honorable Algy.

"Not at all," said the B. M. O. complacently; "I've a relative of sorts
with 'em--leftenant, I believe--a Yankee brother-in-law, in point of
fact."

"Ow."

"Married a step-sister in the States. Must look him up some day,"
concluded the B. M. O., adjusting his field glasses and focussing them on
two dark dots moving across a distant waste of alpine roses along the edge
of a chasm.

One of the dots happened to be the "relative of sorts" just mentioned; but
the B. M. O. could not know that. And a moment afterward the dots became
invisible against the vast mass of the mountain, and did not again
reappear within the field of the English officer's limited vision. So he
never knew he had seen his relative of sorts.

Up there on the alp, one of the dots, which at near view appeared to be a
good-looking, bronzed young man in khaki, puttees, and mountain shoes,
said to the other officer who was scrambling over the rocks beside him:

"Did you ever see a better country for sheep?"

"Bear, elk, goats--it's sure a great layout," returned the younger
officer, a Canadian whose name was Stent.

"Goats," nodded Brown--"sheep and goats. This country was made for them. I
fancy they _have_ chamois here. Did you ever see one, Harry?"

"Yes. They have a thing out here, too, called an ibex. You never saw an
ibex, did you, Jim?"

Brown, who had halted, shook his head. Stent stepped forward and stood
silently beside him, looking out across the vast cleft in the mountains,
but not using his field glasses.

At their feet the cliffs fell away sheer into tremendous and dizzying
depths; fir forests far below carpeted the abyss like wastes of velvet
moss, amid which glistened a twisted silvery thread--a river. A world of
mountains bounded the horizon.

"Better make a note or two," sa