in front of him nor the dusky firs, for it was once more the
picture of a woman with red-gold hair standing in an English rose
garden his fancy painted him.

Then he rose abruptly, and the smile faded, while his face grew grim
again. "In the meanwhile I figure there's a good deal to do," he said.

He commenced it by picking the remnants of the pork out of the
frying-pan, and when he had replaced them carefully in the bag, he
filled the former with water and set it on the fire. That done, he
proceeded to hew four square pegs, and spent some little time cutting,
"One Discovery," upon the largest of them. Then with a compass in his
palm he strode with even paces up the slope of the hill, and drove one
of the pegs in, turned sharply, and floundered into the bush, where he
hammered down a second, and came back along the river until he had
paced off and marked down an oblong.

"Now I'll put in the first shot," he said.

He toiled assiduously with the axehead and a little drill, bruising his
fingers as the light grew dim, and when his left hand was smeared with
blood, drew out a plastic yellow roll from one of his bundles. This he
gently rammed into the hole, squeezed down a copper cap upon a strip of
fuse, and, lighting the latter, retired expeditiously towards the
river. Standing behind a big cedar, he watched the train of blue
vapour and thin red sparks creep on through the dusk until a blaze of
yellow flame leapt up, and a stunning detonation rolled across the
woods. The hillsides took up the sound, and flung it from one to
another in great reverberations, while the pines, quivering in all
their sprays, shook drops of water down. Alton stood still and
listened, silent and intent, while the discord died, until there was
once more stillness again, realizing dimly a little of its significance.

It was man's challenge to the wilderness that had lain sterile long,
and he could forecast the grimness, but not the end of the coming
struggle with rock and flood and snow. Other men had gone down
vanquished in such a fight, he knew, and the forest they slept in had
closed once more upon and hidden the little scars they made. Jimmy had
also challenged savage nature, and Jimmy was dead, while the man who
came after him stood alone, dripping still, and weary, amidst the
whispering pines: he had more than the wilderness against him. Alton
turned with a little shiver, strode back to the fire, unrolled a piece
of pork, a pac