ge from melting snowfields the creek a
little way beyond plunged with a roar over granite ledges. The few
warm days had swollen it from a whispering sheet of spray to a
deep-voiced cataract. A mist from it rose among the deep green of the
fir.

"Isn't it beautiful--beautiful?" Doris said. "There"--she pointed--"is
the canyon of the Little Toba coming in from the south. There is the
deep notch where the big river comes down from the Chilcotin, and a
ridge like the roof of the world rising between. Over north there are
mountains and mountains, one behind the other, till the last peaks are
white cones against the blue sky. There is a bluff straight across us
that goes up and up in five-hundred-foot ledges like masonry, with
hundred-foot firs on each bench that look like toy trees from here.

"I used to call that gorge there"--her pointing finger found the mark
again--"The Black Hole. It is always full of shadows in summer, and in
winter the slides rumble and crash into it with a noise like the end
of the world. Did you ever listen to the slides muttering and
grumbling last winter when you were here, Bob?"

"Yes, I used to hear them day and night."

They stood silent a second or two. The little falls roared above them.
The river whispered at their feet. A blue-jay perched on the roof of
their house and began his harsh complaint to an unheeding world, into
which a squirrel presently broke with vociferous reply. An up-river
breeze rustled the maple leaves, laid cooling fingers from salt water
on Hollister's face, all sweaty from his labor with the paddle.

He could see beauty where Doris saw it. It surrounded him, leaped to
his eye whenever his eye turned,--a beauty of woods and waters, of
rugged hills and sapphire skies. And he was suddenly filled with a
great gladness that he could respond to this. He was quickened to a
strange emotion by the thought that life could still hold for him so
much that seemed good. He put one arm caressingly, protectingly,
across his wife's shoulder, over the smooth, firm flesh that gleamed
through thin silk.

She turned swiftly, buried her face against his breast and burst into
tears, into a strange fit of sobbing. She clung to him like a
frightened child. Her body quivered as if some unseen force grasped
and shook her with uncontrollable power. Hollister held her fast,
dismayed, startled, wondering, at a loss to comfort her.

"But I _can't_ see it," she cried. "I'll never see it again.