signs of big game. But he paid little attention to these.
Finally he came to a point where the forest swept over and down the
steep side of the mountain, and to his great joy he saw that by
strapping his snow-shoes to his back and making good use of his hands it
was possible for him to make a descent.

Fifteen minutes later, breathless but triumphant, he stood at the bottom
of the chasm. On his right rose the strip of cedar forest; on his left
he was shut in by towering walls of black and shattered rock. At his
feet was the little stream which had played such an important part in
his golden dreams, frozen in places, and in others kept clear of ice by
the swiftness of its current. A little ahead of him was that gloomy,
sunless part of the chasm into which he had peered so often from the top
of the ridge on the north. As he advanced step by step into its
mysterious silence, his eyes alert, his nerves stretched to a tension of
the keenest expectancy, there crept over him a feeling that he was
invading that enchanted territory which, even at this moment, might be
guarded by the spirits of the two mortals who had died because of the
treasure it held.

Narrower and narrower became the walls high over his head. Not a ray of
sunlight penetrated into the soundless gloom. Not a leaf shivered in the
still air. The creek gurgled and spattered among its rocks, without the
note of a bird or the chirp of a squirrel to interrupt its monotony.
Everything was dead. Now and then Rod could hear the wind whispering
over the top of the chasm. But not a breath of it came down to him.
Under his feet was only sufficient snow to deaden his own footsteps, and
he still carried his snow-shoes upon his back.

Suddenly, from the thick gloom that hung under one of the cragged walls,
there came a thundering, unearthly sound that made him stop, his rifle
swung half to shoulder. He saw that he had disturbed a great owl, and
passed on. Now and then he paused beside the creek and took up handful
after handful of its pebbles, his heart beating high with hope at every
new gleam he caught among them, and never sinking to disappointment
though he found no gold. The gold was here--somewhere. He was as certain
of that as he was of the fact that he was living, and searching for it.
Everything assured him of that; the towering masses of cleft rock, whole
walls seeming about to crumble into ruin, the broad margins of pebbles
along the creek--everything, to the ve