in a shower upon her
shoulders; and the beautiful eyes blue as the summer sky. In a moment
his tanned face was transformed and became radiant.

Ralph, the quiet and thoughtful, was no less moved. But he turned from
his brother, hugging his own anticipations to himself, and concealing
them behind a grim mask of impassivity. His eyes were bright with the
same insistent idea, but he told himself that the thing was impossible.
He told himself that She lived in the north, and not even the chase of
the far-travelling moose could have brought her hither from her forest
home. These things he said in his caution, but he did not listen to the
voice of his doubt, and his heart beat in great bounding pulsations.

Suddenly Nick sprang from the ground, and short and sharp came his
words.

"Let's git on."

"Ay," replied Ralph, and he turned back to the sled.

And again the dogs laid foot to the ground; and again the voice of Nick
roused the hollow echoes of the shimmering peaks; again the song of the
sled-runners rose and fell in cadence brisk and sharp on the still, cold
air. But all the world was changed to the men. The stillness was only
the stillness which appeals to the physical senses. There was a
sensation of life in the air; a feeling of living surroundings; a
certain knowledge that they were no longer alone in their valley. A
woman was present; _the_ woman.

The widening break of the forest gave place to a broad sloping expanse
of snow-land. It was the hill down which they had travelled many
thousands of times. Above, more snow-laden forest, and above that the
steel of the glacier which rose till its awful limits plunged into the
grey world of cloud. The dugout was not yet in view; there was a scored
and riven crag, black and barren, impervious to the soft caresses of
velvety snow, to be passed ere the home which was theirs would be
sighted. Besides, as yet neither of the men had turned their eyes from
the trailing footprints to look ahead. Thus they came to the higher
ground.

Now the barren crag seemed to thrust itself out, an impassable barrier;
a mute protest at further progress; a grim, silent warning that the home
beyond was no longer for them, no longer the home they had always known.
And the hard-breathing dogs toiled on, straining at their
breast-harness, with bodies heaving forward, heads bent low, and
quarters drooped to give them surer purchase. They, too, as though by
instinct, followed the footprints. A