first range and
looked down upon one of the most wonderful valleys his eyes had ever
beheld. It was more than a valley. It was a broad plain. Fifty miles
across it rose the towering majesty of the mightiest of all the Yukon
mountains.

And now, though he saw a paradise about him, his heart began to sink
within him. It seemed to him inconceivable that in a country so vast he
could find the spot for which he was seeking. His one hope lay in
finding white men or Indians, some one who might guide him.

He traveled slowly over the fifty-mile plain rich with a verdure of
green, covered with flowers, a game paradise. Few hunters had come so
far out of the Yukon mountains, he told himself. And none had come from
out of the sulphur country. It was a new and undiscovered world. On his
map it was a blank space. And there were no signs of people. Ahead of
him the Yukon mountains rose in an impenetrable wall, peak after peak,
crested with snow, towering like mighty watchdogs above the clouds. He
knew what lay beyond them--the great rivers of the Western slope,
Dawson City, the gold country and its civilization. But those things
were on the other side of the mountains. On his side there was only the
vast and undisputed silence of a paradise as yet unclaimed by man.

As he went on into this valley there grew upon him a strange and
comforting peace. Yet with it there was a steadily increasing belief
that he would not find that for which he had come in search. He did not
attempt to analyze this belief. It became a part of him, just as his
mental tranquillity had grown upon him. His one hope of success was
that nearer the mountains he might find white men or Indians.

He no longer used his compass, but guided himself by a cluster of three
gigantic peaks. One of these was taller than the other two. As he
journeyed, his eyes were always returning to it. It fascinated him,
impinged itself upon him as the watcher of a million years, guarding
the valley. He began to think of it as the Watcher. Each hour of his
progress seemed to bring it a little more intimately to his vision.
From his first night's camp in the valley he saw the moon sink behind
it. Within him a voice that never died kept whispering to him that this
mountain, greater than all the others, had been Marette's guardian. Ten
thousand times she must have looked at it, as he had looked at it that
day--if her home was anywhere this side of the Campbell Range. A
hundred miles awa