t to sleep dreaming of the
star visible from the other side of the Holy Cross, dreaming dreams
that men and women have dreamed since time began; of drinking,
drinking, and drinking yet again, of life and love and blessedness from
the fount of human lips; of the seal that should be the seal to
service, not to self; of the gates ajar to a new life like the notch of
sky where the rocks of the Pass opened portals to the blue valley.
Would he have dreamed less joyously if he had known that the portals of
the Pass led to the avalanche and the desert and the alkali death? Who
shall say that love did not pay the toll? And in him rioted the
savagery of the fighter who wanted to seize his foe by the throat.

CHAPTER XIV

ON THE GAME TRAIL

The dull boom of a snow-cornice tumbling over some high cliff on the far
side of the lake awakened the Ranger to the chill darkness of mountain
night just before dawn. The moon had sunk behind the sky-line of the
peaks; and the little lake laving among the reeds lay inky in the shadow
of the heavy mist.

Wayland listened. The deep breathing of the horses round the ashes of
the mosquito smudge guided him across to saddles. He placed saddles,
pack trees and provisions on the raft. Then, he wakened the old man and
pulled the grunting horses to their feet. A little riffle, half wind,
half light, stirred the lake mist, revealing glare patches of snow
reflection in the water.

"Hoh! man, but y'r old peaks have a nip in the air at three in the
mornin'!" Matthews came down to the raft chaffing his hands. "That's a
job worthy a woodsman," he observed, holding the halter reins while the
Ranger got a couple of long poles.

A dozen saplings had been mortised to a couple of cottonwoods.

"They may take water; but they'll not sink; and they'll not tip,"
declared Wayland.

Reeds and willows had been used in place of nails. Two or three of the
logs were spliced to grip the end cottonwoods firmly. The two men
stepped on the raft.

"Why didn't you go round the upper end?"

"Ice," answered Wayland.

"Too deep for poling in the middle?" asked Matthews.

"That's why I'm going to creep along shore."

"It'ull keep y' in the shadows."

With a prod of his pole, Wayland shoved off, and the frontiersman
lengthened out the leading lines for the horses. The Ranger smiled
whimsically to find the reverse side of Holy Cross peak, up-side down in
the water, and he set to figuring out what s