rades. Perhaps this was
not so astonishing, for, after all, strenuous, valiant manhood and
rude kindliness count for much.

The shanty was cheerfully lighted and cosily warm. Nasmyth had slept
soundly there on the springy spruce-twigs, and there was at least
abundance when the mealtimes came round. Now he was about to be cast
adrift again to face a three days' march in the open, under the bitter
frost, and what might await him at the end of it he did not know. At
length, the meal was cleared away, and when the pipes were lighted, he
told his comrades that he was going. They were not demonstrative in
their expressions of regret, but they thrust upon him little plugs of
tobacco, which could not well be replaced there, and several of them
told him that, if he struck nothing he liked better, all he had to do
was to present himself at this ranch or the other beside blue lake or
frothing river when they went back in the spring. What was more to the
purpose, they meant it.

Among those Western pines men are reared who, in point of primitive
vigour, slow endurance, and the dogged courage that leads them to
attempt, and usually to accomplish, the apparently impossible, are a
match for any in the world, and no wanderer who limps up to their
lonely ranches is turned away. Those who have no claim on them are
honoured with their hospitality, and now and then one new to that
country looks with wonder on their handiwork. Down all the long
Pacific coast, from lonely Wrangel, wrapped in the Northern snow, to
Shasta in the South, it is written on hewn-back forest, rent hillside,
and dammed river. The inhabitants are subduing savage Nature; but, as
time will surely show, their greatest achievement is the rearing of
fearless men.

Though it cost him an effort, Nasmyth contrived to smile as he shook
hands with the loggers. Then he set his lips tight as, with his pack
strapped on his shoulders, he opened the door and looked out at the
dimly shining snow. It was only natural that he hesitated for a
moment. After all, brutal as the toil had been, he at least knew what
he was leaving behind, and his heart sank as he drew the door to. The
cold struck through him to the bone, though there was not a breath of
air astir, and the stillness was almost overwhelming. The frost
cramped his muscles and drove the courage out of him, and, as he
plodded down the trail, he heard Jacques, the French-Canadian cook,
tuning his battered fiddle. A little burs