Evening star., 1916-08-20

ing beauty and grandeur, with wide val
leys between the mountains. 1t was July.
From up and down the valley, from the
breaks between the peaks and the little
gulles cleft in shale and rock that crept
up to the snow-line, came a soft and
droning murmur. 1t was the music of
running water. There We're sweet per-
fumes as well as lnslsic in the air. The
earth was bursting with green.
David looked upon it all, and his soul
drank in its wonders. He made his camp,
and he remained in it all that day and
the next. He was eager to go on, and vet
in his eagerness he hesitated and waited.
1t seemed to him that he must become
acquainted with this empty world before
venturing farther into it alone; that it
was necessary for him to understand it a
little, and get his bearings. He could not
lose himself. Jacques had assured him
of that, and Kio had pantomimed it,
pointing many times at the broad, shallow
stream that ran ahead of him. All he had
to do was to follow the river. In time
many weeks, of course-it would bring
him to the white settlement on the ocean.
Long before that he would strike Firepan
Creek. Kio had never been that far; he
had never been farther than this junction
of the two streams, Towaskook had in
formed jacques. So it was not fear that
held David. 1t was the aloneness. He
was taking a long mental breath.
He thought that he had experienced the
depths of loneliness after leaving the mis-
sioner. But here it was much larger
thing. This first night as he sat under
the stars and great white moon, with
Baree at his feet, it engulfed him; not in
IA depressing way, but awesomely. 1t was
not an unpleasant loneliness, and yet he
felt that it had no depths, no measure
that shut him in. He knew that he
would never be able to describe it, this
l,neiness-or aloneness! One man and
dog with world to themselves.
After little, as he looked up at the stars
and listened to the droning sound of the
waters in the valley, it began to thrill him
with new kind of intelligence. Here was
peace as vast as space itself. 1t was not
troubled by the struggling existence of men
and women, and it seemed to him that he
must remain very still under the watchful-
ness of those billions of sentinels in the sky,
with the white moon floating under them.
The second night he made himself and
Baree small fire. The third morning he
shoudered his pack and went on.
Three times that day David saw caribou
at distance. In the afternoon he saw a
grizzly on green slope Toward evening
he ran into luck. A band of sheep had
come down from mountain to drink, and
he came upon them suddenly, the wind
in his favor He killed young ram. For
a full minute after firing the shot he stood
in his tracks, scarcely breathing.
TT was their fifth day in the valley when
they came to u break in the western
wall of the range and through this break
flowed stream that was very much like
the Stikine, broad and shallow and rib
boned with shifting bars of sand. David
made up his mind that it must be the
Firepan, and he felt his pulse quicken as
he started up it with Baree. He must be
quite near to Tavish's cabin, if it had not
been destroyed.
1t was three o'clock when he started up
the creek, and he Observation-Disclosures