and feeling half ready to see some horrible giant
or monster rise up to stop our way.

It was rapidly growing so dark down between those terrible jagged walls
that I began to think we should have to make camp soon and sleep there
in some one or other of the black hollows, and without fire, for there
was nothing visible but scraps of moss, when, all at once, on turning a
corner which had appeared to block the way, it began to grow lighter,
for the sides of the gorge were not so perpendicular.

Then another corner was turned, and it was lighter still with the warm
soft light of evening, and there in the distance was a glowing spot
which I took at first for the sun, but which I knew directly after to be
the ice-capped top of a mountain glowing in the sun. Below it was the
pine forest again, looking almost black, while away on high a cascade
came gliding down like golden spray, touched as it was by the setting
sun.

Half an hour's more weary tramp, and the chief of the Indian party
stopped short, and we found that we had suddenly come upon an opening by
the river where about a couple of dozen Indians were standing by the
rows of salmon they had hung up to dry in the sun.

They all stood gazing at us in a stolid way, till the man who had guided
us went up to them, and then one of the party turned back to their
cluster of teepees and came up to us directly after with a friendly
offering in the shape of a couple of freshly-caught still living salmon,
which Quong bore off eagerly to a spot above the camp.

"But the Indians," I said to Gunson. "Shall we be safe?"

"Safe or in danger, my lad," he replied, "I want food and rest. This is
the worst day's work we have had. Ah, I am beginning to believe in
Quong. Here, let's help the little fellow. You get some water while I
cut some wood."

As we separated I had to go by Esau, who looked at me suspiciously.

"I say," he whispered, "what has old Gunson been saying about me?"

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

"LOOK!"

I can't describe my feelings towards Gunson. One hour he seemed to me
coarse, brutal, and common; at another he was the very reverse, and
spoke in conversation as we tramped along together about books and
languages in a way which made me think that at one time he must have
been a gentleman. At these moments his voice sounded soft and pleasant,
and he quite won me to him.

On the morning after our perilous passage through the gorge, he quite
took me into hi