fying his ravenous hunger to
indulge in conversation with his host, but as his hunger became appeased
he began to give his attention to the man who had so mysteriously blown
in upon him out of the blizzard. There was something fascinating about
the lean, clean-cut face with its firm lines about the mouth and chin
and its deep set brown-grey eyes that glittered like steel or shone
like limpid pools of light according to the mood of the man. They were
extraordinary eyes. Cameron remembered them like dagger points behind
the pistol and then like kindly lights in a dark window when he had
smiled. Just now as he sat eating with eager haste the eyes were staring
forward into the fire out of deep sockets, with a far-away, reminiscent,
kindly look in them. The lumberman's heavy skin-lined jacket and the
overalls tucked into boots could not hide the athletic lines of the
lithe muscular figure. Cameron looked at his hands with their long,
sinewy fingers. "The hands of a gentleman," thought he. "What is his
history? And where does he come from?"

"London's my home," said the stranger, answering Cameron's mental
queries. "Name, Raven--Richard Colebrooke Raven--Dick for short;
rancher, horse and cattle trader; East Kootenay; at present running in
a stock of goods and horses; and caught like yourself in this beastly
blizzard."

"My name's Cameron, and I'm from Edinburgh a year ago," replied Cameron
briefly.

"Edinburgh? Knew it ten years ago. Quiet old town, quaint folk. Never
know what they are thinking about you."

Cameron smiled. How well he remembered the calm, detached, critical but
uncurious gaze with which the dwellers of the modern Athens were wont to
regard mere outsiders.

"I know," he said. "I came from the North myself."

The stranger had apparently forgotten him and was gazing steadily into
the fire. Suddenly, with extraordinary energy, he sprang from the ground
where he had been sitting.

"Now," he cried, "en avant!"

"Where to?" asked Cameron, rising to his feet.

"East Kootenay, all the way, and hustle's the word."

"Not me," said Cameron. "I must get back to my camp. If you will kindly
leave me some grub and some matches I shall be all right and very much
obliged. McIvor will be searching for me to-morrow."

"Ha!" burst forth the stranger in vehement expletive. "Searching for
you, heh?" He stood for a few moments in deep thought, then spoke to the
Indian a few words in his own language. That individual,