Looking east the lads could see a great white rampart lifted high against the sky. Drifting mists cut it off from the world below, and here and there the fires of sunrise burned up from behind it through the hollows between the peaks. No light, however, touched the western snow as yet, and it shone ethereally majestic in its blue-white purity. Then a single golden ray streamed heavenward like a flash of a celestial beacon, and the lads watched it in wondering silence held still almost in awe, and forgot the limitless sweep of prairie, rock and forest that lay between those mountains' eastern slope and Montreal, until Stickine'e voice reminded them that they had still work to do.
"She'd go home faster, boys, with another foot of main-sheet in," he said, cheerily.
It was a week later when one night they crept past Port Parry before a faint wind. Ahead the lights of Victoria blinked at them, and every now and then a smoky haze drove athwart the moon, while Appleby, watching the dusky shore slide by, could almost have fancied it was once more the night he and Niven had been blown away from the Aldebaran. She was not there, however, and though the scene was the same he and his comrade had changed. They had seen things few men have looked upon up in the misty seas, and the spirit of the silent North had set its stamp on them, giving them gravity in place of boyish exuberance, and for the quality Niven had esteemed as dash the sterner, colder courage of steadfastness.
Presently a sailing-boat came flitting towards them, and a man in her waved his liaud.
"Hello, Jordan! Going straight across?" he said.
"Oh, yes," said Jordan, who seemed to recognize the voice. "I'm getting along as fast as I can, though there's not much wind. Have you anything for us?"
"No," said the man. "I just wanted to make sure of you. Holway of Vancouver asked me to wire him if I saw you pass."
"Well," said Jordan, "what has it to do with him?"
"I don't know," said the other man, as the boat dropped astern. "Still, he seemed quite anxious to hear when you were coming."
Jordan turned to Stickine. "There's something I don't understand. I don't owe a dollar to Holway or anybody."