yards away on the other side of the clearing stood the stables, and near
them the smiddy. The mountains rose grandly on every side, throwing up
their great peaks into the sky. The clearing in which the camp stood was
hewn out of a dense pine forest that filled the valley and climbed half
way up the mountain-sides, and then frayed out in scattered and stunted
trees.

It was one of those wonderful Canadian winter days, bright, and with a
touch of sharpness in the air that did not chill, but warmed the blood
like draughts of wine. The men were up in the woods, and the shrill
scream of the blue jay flashing across the open, the impudent chatter
of the red squirrel from the top of the grub camp, and the pert chirp of
the whisky-jack, hopping about on the rubbish-heap, with the long, lone
cry of the wolf far down the valley, only made the silence felt the
more.

As I stood drinking in with all my soul the glorious beauty and the
silence of mountain and forest, with the Christmas feeling stealing into
me, Graeme came out from his office, and, catching sight of me, called
out, 'Glorious Christmas weather, old chap!' And then, coming nearer,
'Must you go to-morrow?'

'I fear so,' I replied, knowing well that the Christmas feeling was on
him too.

'I wish I were going with you,' he said quietly.

I turned eagerly to persuade him, but at the look of suffering in his
face the words died at my lips, for we both were thinking of the awful
night of horror when all his bright, brilliant life crashed down about