his glance more assured and penetrating, while his step, firm and
alert, told of dauntless purpose. He was no longer the wandering
cowboy content with a bed on the ground wherever chance might find
him at night, but a mature man who had taken root in the soil of
his own acres. Only twenty-five or six, his features were still
touched with the last lingering mobility of youth; but the set of
his mouth and the gleam of his eyes hinted at years of battle
against storms, droughts and loneliness. He was already a veteran
of the prairie, despite his youth.

"Everything looks very natural!" murmured Wilfred Compton, gazing
about on the seamed walls of granite in whose crevices the bright
cedars mocked at winter's threatening hand.

"Yes, mountains is lots more natural than humans. They just sets
there serene and indifferent not caring whether you likes their
looks or not, and they let 'er blow and let 'er snow, it's all one
to them. I reckon when we've been dead so long that nobody could
raise a dispute as to whether we'd ever lived or not, that there
same boulder what they calls Rocking Stone will still be a-making
up its mind whether to roll down into the valley or stay where it
was born. Wilfred, if you knowed how glad I am to see you again,
you'd be sort of scared, I reckon, thinking you'd fell amongst
cannibals. Wonder where that aged trapper is?" He shouted more
lustily, and a bristling white head suddenly appeared on the summit
of Turtle Hill.

"Great Scott!" yelled Bill Atkins, glaring down upon the approaching
figure, "if it ain't Wilfred Compton again! Come on, come on, I was
never as glad to see anybody in all my life!"