him now with the joyous intentness of the hunter and the adventurer.

Langdon was thirty-five. A part of his life he spent in the wild places;
the other part he spent in writing about the things he found there. His
companion was five years his junior in age, but had the better of him by
six inches in length of anatomy, if those additional inches could be called
an advantage. Bruce thought they were not. "The devil of it is I ain't done
growin' yet!" he often explained.

He rode up now and unlimbered himself. Langdon pointed ahead.

"Did you ever see anything to beat that?" he asked.

"Fine country," agreed Bruce. "Mighty good place to camp, too, Jim. There
ought to be caribou in this range, an' bear. We need some fresh meat. Gimme
a match, will you?"

It had come to be a habit with them to light both their pipes with one
match when possible. They performed this ceremony now while viewing the
situation. As he puffed the first luxurious cloud of smoke from his
bulldog, Langdon nodded toward the timber from which they had just come.

"Fine place for our tepee," he said. "Dry wood, running water, and the
first good balsam we've struck in a week for our beds. We can hobble the
horses in that little open plain we crossed a quarter of a mile back. I saw
plenty of buffalo grass and a lot of wild timothy."

He looked at his watch.

"It's only three o'clock. We might go on. But--what do you say? Shall we