er of
a thick balsam. Under this he crouched for five or ten minutes, when the
rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The thunder rolled southward, and
the lightning went with it. In the darkness he heard Bruce fumbling
somewhere near. Then a match was lighted, and he saw his comrade looking at
his watch.

"Pretty near three o'clock," he said. "Nice shower, wasn't it?"

"I rather expected it," replied Langdon carelessly. "You know, Bruce,
whenever the snow on the peaks is so white--"

"Shut up--an' let's get a fire! Good thing we had sense enough to cover our
grub with the blankets. Are yo' wet?"

Langdon was wringing the water from his hair. He felt like a drowned rat.

"No. I was under a thick balsam, and prepared for it. When you called my
attention to the whiteness of the snow on the peaks I knew--"

"Forget the snow," growled Bruce, and Langdon could hear him breaking off
dry pitch-filled twigs under a spruce.

He went to help him, and five minutes later they had a fire going. The
light illumined their faces, and each saw that the other was not unhappy.
Bruce was grinning under his sodden hair.

"I was dead asleep when it came," he explained. "An' I thought I'd fallen
in a lake. I woke up tryin' to swim."

An early July rain at three o'clock in the morning in the northern British
Columbia mountains is not as warm as it might be, and for the greater part
of an hour Langdon and Bruce continued to gather fuel and dry their
blankets and clothing. It was five o'clock before they had breakfast, and a
little after six when they started with their two saddles and single pack
up the valley. Bruce had the satisfaction of reminding Langdon that his
prediction had come true for a glorious day followed the thunder shower.

Under them the meadows were dripping. The valley purred louder with the
music of the swollen streamlets. From the mountain-tops a half of last
night's snow was gone, and to Langdon the flowers seemed taller and more
beautiful. The air that drifted through the valley was laden with the
sweetness and freshness of the morning, and over and through it all the sun
shone in a warm and golden sea.

They headed up the creek-bottom, bending over from their saddles to look at
every strip of sand they passed for tracks. They had not gone a quarter of
a mile when Bruce gave a sudden exclamation, and stopped. He pointed to a
round patch of sand in which Thor had left one of his huge footprints.
Langdon dism