-grey rock where the winds of ages had whipped
the sand down into the valleys. Little clusters of green poplars,
like vast goatees, nestled on the northern chin of the hills across
the valley, where the Chinook had failed to spread its balmy
winter-blight among them; here and there were glimpses of thousands
of cattle feeding on the brown ranges. The sun, like a bubble of
molten gold blown from the bowl of heaven, hung very close in a
steel-bright, cloudless sky. Lower it fell, and lower, until a fang
of rock two miles high pierced its under-edge, and sent a flood of
fire pouring in a thin, bright border along the crest of the Rockies.
The travellers stopped their horses on a ridge to watch the
marvellous transformation; light before them, light behind them, at
their feet the shadows creeping up the mountain sides, and the valley
beneath transformed as by some fairy wand into a sea of amber.

Allan breathed deeply of the high, clear air, and in his eye was
something which revealed that the light without had some way struck
to new life the slumbering light within. He had no words of
expression--no means of conveying his emotion; but he thought of his
mother and Beulah--Beulah, who had so often protested against the
substitution of existence for life. He had never had much patience
with her queer notions, but now, in this moment when he knew that in
some strange way he had invaded the borderland of the Infinite,
Beulah stood up before his eyes--Beulah, his sister, resolute,
defiant, reaching out, demanding life, life! He turned to his father,
but was silenced by the sight of a line of moisture crawling slowly
down the weather-beaten cheek. John Harris was driving again the
pioneer trail from Emerson; at his side was Mary, young, beautiful,
and trusting, and before them lay life...And they had not found that
life...He made a dry sound in his throat, and the horses moved on.

Darkness settled about them. One or two stars came out. The poplars
took on the colour of the spruce; the river fretted more noisily in
its rocky channel. A thin ribbon of cloud lay across the mountains,
and a breeze of wonderful mellowness came down through the passes.

At length, just as they were thinking of pitching camp for the night,
Allan espied a deserted cabin in a cluster of trees by the side of
the road. They turned into the wood and unhitched the horses.

The building was some old prospector's shack, long unoccupied save
for occasional