And King's face was grave now as he shaded his eyes with one hand in an effort to pierce the haze and get a glimpse of the white tents and the roughly-built huts that stood down there among the trees.
He did not know exactly where he should look to find the town, for it was his first trip over a new trail that led from the railway construction camp to the town. Once every two weeks or so during the summer he had gone out by the long trail and returned with a bag of mail slung behind him. On those longer trips he had often perched himself upon some hill overlooking the valley and dreamed away an hour or so as he thought of the future—and of the past.
Now he was on a new trail. The "end-of-the-steel" had daily crept closer to the valley and at last he had been notified that future deliveries of mail for the settlement would be made at the railway supply camp at the end of the line.
King Howden had loitered during that summer afternoon, and the loitering was not all on account of the heat. There is romance in a new trail that has been freshly-blazed and newly-cleared, and King Howden—though he never would have admitted it even to himself—liked the romance that springs to meet one at every bend in a newly-made roadway.
On a bright day he might have seen the white tents and log cabins of The Town quite easily. But to-day it was quite hidden behind a smoky blue-white curtain that obscured everything beyond a radius of only a few miles.
"Too thick to-day, Sal," he said, addressing the dog as he prepared to get down.
At the sound of her name the dog edged up a little closer along the log and rubbed her nose affectionately against his knee. King smiled slowly and then, instead of getting down to the ground immediately, he squatted low and took the dog's ears in his hands.
"Sal, you old cuss," he said slowly, "look me in the eye. D'you remember the day I took you in? You common old purp, I saved your life when you were nothing but just plain, ornery pup. If I hadn't come along that day and given promises to take you away, gunnysack and all—splash!—you'd been a dead dog, Sal."
He turned the dog's head sideways as he spoke and thrust it downwards violently in imitation of what might have occurred early in the dog's history and so have terminated her career suddenly had he not happened along at the critical moment. The dog blinked her eyes and licked her jaws by way of reply.
"And a dead dog ain't worth speaking about, Sal," he continued. "But you're a sure 'nough live dog even if you are common stuff and not much account. And I like you, Sal,—sure, I like you. I like you for staying round. I like you because you don't squeal. If you were a squealer now—I'd shoot you in a minute."