in which
Thor was born, and here again Thor paused, sniffing up and down the wind,
and waiting for nothing in particular.
It was growing dark. A wailing storm hung over the canyon. Biting winds
swept down from the peaks, and the sky was black and full of snow.
For a minute the grizzly stood with his head and shoulders in the cavern
door. Then he entered. Muskwa followed. Deep back they went through a
pitch-black gloom, and it grew warmer and warmer, and the wailing of the
wind died away until it was only a murmur.
It took Thor at least half an hour to arrange himself just as he wanted to
sleep. Then Muskwa curled up beside him. The cub was very warm and very
comfortable.
That night the storm raged, and the snow fell deep. It came up the canyon
in clouds, and it drifted down through the canyon roof in still thicker
clouds, and all the world was buried deep. When morning came there was no
cavern door, there were no rocks, and no black and purple of tree and
shrub. All was white and still, and there was no longer the droning music
in the valley.
Deep back in the cavern Muskwa moved restlessly. Thor heaved a deep sigh.
After that long and soundly they slept. And it may be that they dreamed.
THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN
"You are going up from among a people who have many gods to a people who
have but one," said Ransom quietly, looking across at the other. "It would
be better for you if you turned back. I've spent four years in the
Government service, mostly north of Fifty-three, and I know what I'm
talking about. I've read all of your books carefully, and I tell you
now--go back. If you strike up into the Bay country, as you say you're
going to, every dream of socialism you ever had will be shattered, and you
will laugh at your own books. Go back!"
Roscoe's fine young face lighted up with a laugh at his old college chum's
seriousness.
"You're mistaken, Ranny," he said. "I'm not a socialist but a sociologist.
There's a distinction, isn't there? I don't believe that my series of books
will be at all complete without a study of socialism as it exists in its
crudest form, and as it must exist up here in the North. My material for
this last book will show what tremendous progress the civilization of two
centuries on this continent has made over the lowest and wildest forms of
human brotherhood. That's my idea, Ranny. I'm an optimist. I believe that
every invention we make, that every step we take in the ad
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