Morton Stamford may not have been a sick man when he arrived at the H-Lazy Z ranch; he was at least a stronger man at the end of his month's stay. His riding he continued only as practice, always with the thought that he might require it. But he walked more, diving out of sight daily into the chaos of the river banks, there to piece together his clues and plan new attacks on the problem he was working into shape for presentation to the Mounted Police.
Also he now and then caught sight of Isabel Bulkeley on the other cliff, and that in itself was reward enough.
As the days passed he felt a new thrill in his veins, a virility that clamoured for physical exertion, and his walks extended further and further along the river, a lunch strapped over his shoulders.
Eastward the south bank often fell to an uninteresting flatness, lined still by the grass-covered trails of the buffalo herds of comparatively recent years. Westward it was different. There the prairie level dropped to the river in one great leap, confining the current sometimes between high cliffs, sometimes with steep rocky wall on one side and an almost inaccessible valley on the other to the foot of the opposite cliff. It was a canyon of varying tightness, but always a canyon, the water dashing down here and there with frothy roar, everywhere with a force and depth that defied fording. The glamour of its fury appealed more and more as he tramped further up-stream.
Hundreds of miles still to the west, in the foothills of the Rockies, the main branch was a glacier torrent that rolled onward through uninhabited wilds until it cut the Calgary-Edmonton line of homesteaders at the village of Red Deer. Thereafter it dived once more into the unknown, never once touching the haunts of men until it reached the H-Lazy Z.
Stamford used to sit overlooking the torrent, picturing that long trail in the wilderness, where thousands of years ago great animals had been covered by the earth's convulsions. His uncontrolled imagination knit fantastic stories about them, and the fettered life of the little man longed to break into the heart of it and listen to its tale before soulless man tamed it.
One day he found himself far above any point he had reached before. He had clung to the top of the cliff, stopping only here and there to peer over the precipice to the water's edge, and his progress had been faster than he realised. Amid scenes new and vastly interesting he munched his lunch. Below him the face of the cliff was rent by huge fissures and lined with ledges, and the river valley spread and narrowed in infinite variety. Across the river the hitherto unbroken height showed signs of relenting, and great dips almost approached the nature of valleys.
Uncertain how far he had come, he was about to turn back, when a sudden noise sent him crouching to the upper rocks. It was the barking of huge dogs. At the first note he recognised them. He wondered if they had seen him, and he peered carefully out. The dogs were on the other side of the river, higher up.
He began to creep toward them, the condition of the cliffs favouring him. Gradually he sank lower and lower toward the river. He did not dare look out. With an instinctive anxiety he did not stop to analyse, he felt that other eyes were there; also he dreaded some unthrilling explanation for the thing that was thrilling him.
When at last the clamour told him that he had come far enough, he raised his head to an opening in the rocks and looked.