with economic problems, too.

He would try once more. If he did not win, the dream of his youth would
have to be given over. He had devoted his days to it; such a force as
was about to send Virginia Tremont into the wilderness in search of her
lover had never come up in his life. He sat dreaming, the ashes cold in
is pipe.

He was called to himself by a distinct feeling of cold. The fire was
out, the chill of the early midnight hours had crept into the room. The
man rose wearily, then strode to the door for a moment's survey of the
sky.

For a breath he stood watching. His was the only lamp still glowing:
only the starlight, wan and pale, lay over the town. The night wind
came stealing, an icy ghost, up the dark street; and it chilled his
uncovered throat. The moon rose over the spruce forest, ringed with
white. Already the frost was growing on the roofs.

The ring around the moon, the nip in the air, the little wind that
came so gently, yet with such sinister stealth, all portended one
thing,--that the great northern winter was lurking just beyond the
mountains, ready to swoop forth. Of course there would be likely time
in plenty for a dash into Clearwater; yet the little breath of fall
was almost gone. Far away, rising and falling faint as a cobweb in
the air, a coyote sang to the rising moon,--a strange, sobbing song of
pain and sadness and fear that only the woodsman, to whom the North
had sent home its lessons, could understand.

II

Bill Bronson found that he had the usual number of difficulties to
contend with, when arranging for the journey. He had to procure more
horses for the larger outfit, and he was obliged to comb the town of
them before he had enough. This was not an agricultural land, this wild
realm of the Selkirks, and all of the animals were originally Indian
stock,--the usual type of mountain cayuses with which most big-game
hunters are acquainted. Some of them were faithful and trustworthy
animals, but many were half-broken, many cowardly and vicious. On those
he rented he took the risk; he would be charged on the books for all
those that were not returned to their owners at Bradleyburg by October
twentieth.

Bill knew perfectly that he would play in good fortune if the loss in
horseflesh did not cost him most of the gains of the undertaking. Even
the sturdy mustangs were not bred for traversing the trails of
Clearwater. There were steep hills where a single misstep me