Forrest was lying on his blanket, his feet to the camp-fire, hands clasped under his head, his wakeful face raised to the near stars. An arm's-length from him Myers slumbered, audibly. Stillness rested on the small white tent. But presently his horse tramped uneasily, pulling on his picket rope, and the young man rose and went over to him. "So, Colonel," he said softly, "restless, too, are you? Steady, now, steady, we'll work it off, old fellow, so."
He found the bridle and, mounting without a saddle turned up the lofty slope. The horse flung his head, and with some airy stepping by the white tent, set himself willingly to the ascent. The firelight, as he passed, brought out the silver star between his intelligent eyes, the one marking, from the tips of his sensitive ears to his nimble hind feet, in a handsome, jet-black coat.
The settler stirred and rose on his elbow with an inquiring "Hello!" And Forrest called back, "I'm just going up to the summit for another look around, and to try to shape a course for the day's tramp."
Myers laughed and settled back comfortably to his blanket. "I 'low," he told himself, yawning, "he ain't likely ter see much more'n fog."
Half way up the hill Forrest halted, breathing his horse on a level spur, and looked down over the tops of the firs. "It's a natural town site," he said aloud; "and when the country opens it's bound to be a mining center. There's a fortune in that water power, but I should set up my own stamp mills there at the falls, and build cottages for the men to the right on that knoll. And meantime—meantime—what an Eden it would make." He turned with a quick upward lift of his head. "Come, Colonel, come," he said, "we must keep a tighter rein. It's summer now, and she isn't over the novelty; but it won't last through the first September rains. Even if she loved me—I could never ask her to bury herself up here in the wilderness; her—with her ideals and dreams, and all those nice, luxurious ways."
He rode on in silence. The moon paled; there were no longer stars, and, as he reached the summit and looked eastward, he saw the first streak of light broadening and toning to green on the horizon. The peaks and shoulders of the Cascades loomed against it purplish black, but all their base, the valleys, foothills, sank in a white fog that lifted slowly to meet the dawn. The sky warmed to yellow; a far spur flushed. He felt the rising moisture in the air, drew a damp breath. A belt of high cloud crimsoned, and he saw nothing more.
The fog closed in, billow on billow, flooding the canyon, lapping the ledge where he stopped. Then for a moment the white sea parted, and the granite tower hung tilting over the abyss. It stood solitary, like a lighthouse on a stormy coast, and in another instant was blotted out.
He dismounted, and with his hand on his horse's neck, his hat pushed back, stood watching these waves, flowing, separating, rolling together, rushing out. "And it's something you can't grapple with, or put down," he said at last. "You've got to push into it, blind, or wait for it to break. It's like the future. That's it; I could give a year or two to the grind at Freeport, easily enough, if I was only reasonably sure. But it's all a chance. A chance that no other man will stumble on my find, or want this section, or the water power, a chance,—" he began to smooth the black's mane gently,—"a chance, old boy, that she will care enough for me, some day, to wait for me."
The defiance faded from his face. He took his lariat coil, and seating himself on a rock, allowed the horse to go the length of the rope, seeking a scant forage. Presently he breathed a whistle; it settled into a definite tune:
