n the far distance the purple haze of the Rockies.

It was six weeks after the night in Kao's place that he struck the
Saskatchewan again above the Brazeau. He did not hurry now. Just ahead
of him slumbered the mountains; very close was the place of his dreams.
But he was no longer impelled by the mighty lure of the years that were
gone. Day by day something had worn away that lure, as the ceaseless
grind of water wears away rock, and for two weeks he wandered slowly
and without purpose in the green valleys that lay under the snow-tipped
peaks of the ranges. He was gripped in the agony of an unutterable
loneliness, which fell upon and scourged him like a disease. It was a
deeper and more bitter thing than a yearning for companionship. He
might have found that. Twice he was near camps. Three times he saw
outfits coming out, and purposely drew away from them. He had no desire
to meet men, no desire to talk or to be troubled by talking. Day And
night his body and his soul cried out for Mary Josephine, and in his
despair he cursed those who had taken her away from him. It was a
crisis which was bound to come, and in his aloneness he fought it out.
Day after day he fought it, until his face and his heart bore the scars
of it. It was as if a being on whom he had set all his worship had
died, only it was worse than death. Dead, Mary Josephine would still
have been his inspiration; in a way she would have belonged to him. But
living, hating him as she must, his dreams of her were a sacrilege and
his love for her like the cut of a sword. In the end he was like a man
who had triumphed over a malady that would always leave its marks upon
him. In the beginning of the third week he knew that he had conquered,
just as he had triumphed in a similar way over death and despair in the
north. He would go into the mountains, as he had planned. He would
build his cabin. And if the Law came to get him, it was possible that
again he would fight.

On the second day of this third week he saw advancing toward him a
solitary horseman. The stranger was possibly a mile away when he
discovered him, and he was coming straight down the flat of the valley.
That he was not accompanied by a pack-horse surprised Keith, for he was
bound out of the mountains and not in. Then it occurred to him that he
might be a prospector whose supplies were exhausted, and that he was
easing his journey by using his pack as a mount. Whoever and whatever
he was, Keith was