ered with him a little
while ago. It had been her first ascent, and she now felt the thrill
of achievement and remembered how she had come down that apparently
endless slope in the darkness. The feat looked almost impossible, by
daylight. Then she remembered also how her nerves had tingled, and the
curious sense of exaltation that had come over her as she crept along
the dizzy edge of the great rock scarp in the moonlight, far above the
unsubstantial ghosts of climbing trees. For the time being, it had
proved stronger than weariness or the sense of personal danger, and
she had a vague fancy that the memory of it would always cling to her.

"Yes," she said, "I think I brought down something, or rather it
attached itself to me. What is it?"

Weston spread out his hands with a boyish laugh.

"How should I know? Its glamour and mystery, perhaps. Still, though
the prospector knows it, everybody can't feel it. One must have
sympathy. It would make itself felt by you."

The girl's face checked him. She felt that there was a subtle bond of
mutual comprehension between her and this stranger; but she was not
prepared to admit it to him; and he recognized that he had, perhaps,
gone further than was advisable.

"Still," he continued, "though it's plainest up on the high peaks, the
bush is full of it. You can recognize it everywhere. Listen!"

Ida did so. She heard the hoarse fret of the river, and the faint
elfin sighing high up in the top of the firs.

It was the old earth music, and it drowned the recollection of social
conventions and caste distinctions. It was the same to camp-packer and
rich contractor's daughter. As Ida listened it seemed to stir the
primitive impulses of her human nature. She took alarm and stopped her
ears to it.

"Is it wise to listen?" she asked. "It leads to nothing but
restlessness."

"It seldom leads to any material benefit," Weston admitted. "After
all, I think, one has to be a vagabond before one can properly
appreciate it."

"You seem sure of that?" Ida's curiosity to know more of him would not
permit her to avoid the personal application.

"I'm afraid there must be a little of the vagabond in me," said
Weston, with a smile. "Once I walked into Winnipeg without a dollar,
and was fortunate in hiring myself to add up figures in a big
flour-mill. The people for whom I worked seemed quite pleased with the
way I did it, and paid me reasonably. I lived in a big boarding-house
like a rabbit-