t when such an occasion arose his
words carried a deal of weight with those who knew him.

A few minutes later and they were both riding slowly down the avenue of
pines leading from the house. The direction in which they were moving
was away from the settlement, down towards where the great level flat of
the muskeg began. At the end of the avenue they turned directly to the
southeast, leaving the township behind them. The prairie was soft and
springy. There was still a keen touch of winter in the fresh spring air.
The afternoon sun was shining coldly athwart the direction of their
route.

Jacky led the way, and, as they drew clear of the bush, and the house
and settlement were hidden from view behind them, she urged her horse
into a good swinging lope. Thus they progressed in silence. The
far-reaching deadly mire on their right, looking innocent enough in the
shadow of the snow-clad peaks beyond, the ranch well behind them in the
hollow of the Foss River Valley, whilst, on their left, the mighty
prairie rolled away upwards to the higher level of the surrounding
country.

In this way they covered nearly a mile, then the girl drew up beside a
small clump of weedy bush.

"Are you ready for the plunge, Bill?" she asked, as her companion drew
up beside her. "The path's not more than four feet wide. Does your
'plug' shy any?"

"He's all right. You lead right on. Where you can travel I've a notion
I'm not likely to funk. But I don't see the path."

"I guess you don't. Never did nature keep her secret better than in the
setting out of this one road across her woeful man-trap. You can't see
the path, but I guess it's an open book to me, and its pages ain't
Hebrew either. Say, Bill, there's been many a good prairie man looking
for this path, but"--with a slight accent of exultation--"they've never
found it. Come on. Old Nigger knows it; many a time has he trodden its
soft and shaking surface. Good old horse!" and she patted the black neck
of her charger as she turned his head towards the distant hills and
urged him forward with a "chirrup."

Far across the muskeg the distant peaks of the mountain range glistened
in the afternoon sun like diamond-studded sugar loaves. So high were the
clouds that every portion of the mighty summits was clearly outlined.
The great ramparts of the prairie are a magnificent sight on a clear
day. Flat and smooth as any billiard-table stretched this silent,
mysterious muskeg, already green and