So after he had made another trip down to the falls in Toba River and packed in the last of the supplies, he spent his days pleasantly learning the lay of the country for miles around. He shot a deer for meat. He watched bear feeding on the slides. The creek below was full of small trout. There was abundance of small fur sign. Goodrich was not lonely, but as the days passed he began to grow anxious for a sight of the man who had made this oasis of peace accessible to him.
He stood in the doorway of the cabin one evening at sunset. In the hush that shrouded those rugged solitudes a stick cracked sharply on the slope that rose steeply from the creek. Goodrich listened intently. At rare intervals he caught faintly the sound of something moving up toward the bench. He stepped back within the shadow of the door to watch, his rifle handy. Presently a head, and then a pair of shoulders, burdened by a pack sack, lifted to view. It was his man. He came up to the door, looked in.
“Hello, old-timer,” he greeted Goodrich. “I see you made it all right.”
He backed up to the table and Bill helped him slide out of the pack straps. They shook hands. The man wiped his sweaty face.
“I see you got some meat hung up,” he remarked. “Say, I could chew the leg off a deer raw, right now.”
“Sit down. I’ll get you some supper,” Goodrich directed.
When he had two big venison steaks sizzling over the fire, and a pot of water slung on the hook to boil, he asked:
“How’d you come out with them?”
The man laughed.
“All right. I told ’em who I was, but naturally they didn’t swallow it. They took me clear to Vancouver. I got identified there easy enough.”