Los Angeles herald., 1908-11-22

dllu Il swirl twilight Was SlIednihS
over the land. As the sun passed, the
eyes of two men on a high hill fol-
lowed ii, and the look of one was like
a light in a window to a lost traveller.
1t had in it the sense of home and the
tale of a journey done. Such a journey
this man had made as few have ever
attempted and fewer accomplished. To
the farthermost regions of snow and
ice, where the shoulder Of a continent
juts out into the northwestern Arctic
seas, he had travelled on foot and alone,
save for his dogs, and for Indian
guides, who now and then shepherded
him from point to point. The vast ice
hummocks had been his housing; penn
mican, the raw flesh of fish and even
the fat and oil of seals had been his
food. Ever and ever through long
months the everlasting white glitter OF
the snow and ice, ever and ever the
cold stars, the cloudless sky, the moon
at full, or like a white sickle set to
warn him that his life must be mown
like grass.
Where he had gone none other had
been of white men from the western
lands, though from across the wide
Pacific, from the eastern world, adj
venturers and exiles had once visited
what is now known as the Yukon val
ley. So this man, browsing in the
library of his grandfather an eastern
scholar had come to know, and for love
of adventure, and because of the tale
of a valley of gold and treasure to be
had, and because he had been ruined
by bad investments, had mace a jour-
nev like none any one man had es-
saved before. And on his way up TO
those regions, where the veil before
the face of God is very thin and hne'
and mems hearts glow within them,
though all the world of herb and flower
and flowing water is concealed ABOUT
them, and never a bird floats in the
air or a tree in loneliness stretches out
gaunt arms to the spring-on his way
to the desert of white, where no oasis
was save the unguessed deposit or a
great human dream that his soul could
feel but his eyes could not behold, he
had seen the face of a. girl which had
haunted him on his austere pilgrimage.
Her yoice-so sweet voice that II
rang like muffled silver in his ears
till in the arena of the everlasting the-
alter of the Pole, the stars seemed 10
repeat it through millions OF echolng
hills, growing softer and softer as the
frost hushed it to his ears-it had SAID
to him late and early, so that he was
cheered when he would have wept IN
misery, and raised when he would nave
fallen, "You must come back with the
swallows" -
It had been but an acquaintance OF
five days while he fitted out for ms
expedition, but in this brief time IL hau
sunk deep into his mind that life was
now a thing to cherish and that he
must indeed come back; though he
khad left England caring little II, in the
peril and danger of his quest, he ever
returned. He had been Indifferent 10
his fate till he came to the valley OF the
Saskatchewan, to the town lying at
the foot of the maple hill beside the
great northern stream, and saw the
girl whose life was knit with the far
north, whose mothers heart was
buried in the great wastes where sir
John Franklin's expedition was LOST;
for her husband had been one OF the
Inflated If not unhappy band OF lovers
Of their kind and of that CIVILIZATION
for which they had risked all ana lost
all save immortality. Hither they had
come after he had been cast away on
the icy plains and as the settlement
had crept north, had gone north with
it. always on the outer edge OF house
and field, ever stepping northWard.
Here with small income but high
hearts and quiet souls they had lived
and labored, angels of mercy and Kind
ness among pioneers, as he whom they
And when the man, who now again
looked down in safety. upon the little
town, set his face northward to an
unknown destination, she and her
daughter had prayed as the mother
did in the old days when the daughter
was but babe at her knee. and it was
not yet certain that Franklin and his
men had been cast away forever.
And he had returned He was now
looking down into the valley where the
village lay. Far far over, two days
march away, he could see the cluster OF
houses, and the glow of the sun on the
tin spre of the little mission church
where he had heard the girl and her
mother sing till the hearts of all were
swept by feeling and ravished by the
desire for 1.-THE peace of the Holy
Grail" The village was, in truth, but
a days march away from him, but he
was not alone, and the journey could
not be FASTENED. Beside him, his eyes
also upon the sunset and the village,
was man in a costume half trapper,
half Indian, with bushy gray beard
and massive frame. and a distant, sor-
rowful look, like that of one whose
soul was tuned to past suffering. As
he sat, his head sunk on his breast, his
elbow resting on a stump of pine-the
token of progressive ciVilization-his
chin upon his hand, he looked like the
figure of Moses made immortal Dy
Michael Angelo. But his strength was
not like that of the young man beside
him, who was thirty years younger.
When he walked, it was as one who
had no destination, who had no haven
toward which to travel, who journeyed
as one to whom the world is a wilder
ness, and one tent or one hut is the
same as another and none is home.
Like two ships meeting hull to hull
on the wide seas, where a few miles of
water will hide them from each other.
whose ports are thousands of miles
apart, whose courses are not the same,
they two had met, the elder man. sick
and worn, and near to death, in the
poor hospitality of an Indians tepee.
John Bickersteth had nursed him back
to strength, and had brought him
southwark with him, a silent COM
panion, who spoke in monosyllables,
who had no conversation at all of the
past, and little of the present; but who
was a woodsman and an Arctic traveller
of the most expert kind, who knew by
instinct where the best places for shell
ter and for sleeping might be found,
who never complained, was wonderful
with the dogs. of whom only one was
left of the original team with which the
younger man had started.
What did Bickersteth know of him
Little or nothing. Bickersteth knew a
little OF the Chinook language. which is
known to most Indian tribes, kind of
Volapuk the lingua franca of the north,
and he had learned that the Indians
knew nothing exact concerning the old
man; but there were rumors which had
passed from tribe to tribe that this