A WHITEMAN’S WORD
The grey dawn yielded to the many hues of the sunrise. For the moment a cloudless azure dome smiled down upon a world with a soft crystal-white carpet outspread. For days the temperature had hovered about zero, and ice had formed upon the waterways with that fierce rapidity which the northern man knows so well. Its frigid grip was reaching in every direction seeking to seal the world under iron bonds.
But the Valley of the Fire Hills was dripping and steaming. Everywhere the snow was melting, and the dark waters of the little river flowed smoothly on still free from the smallest trace of ice. The temperature was well above freezing, for the terrestrial furnaces of the blackened hills were banked and glowing.
The valley was dense with a fog of steam. It was a ghostly world without shape or form. A blind world with only the river bank to guide the adventurer through its heart. There was no sound of life for all the coming of the pitiful light of the briefest day. The world was still, remote, bewildering.
Yet life was there; staunch, indomitable life. It was there with purpose, simple, unwavering, and no qualm or doubt marred the clarity of its resolution. A boat, a small whiteman-built canoe, was moving up the eastern bank of the stream, feeling groping, taking every chance so that it made its final destination.
With the first lift of the sun above the horizon a current of air stirred the fog, and a cold breath shot through the tepid air. It came and passed. Then it came again with added force. It was low on the ground and the fog lifted. Swift and keen it pursued its advantage, and the blinding mist thinned, and a dull sheen of the risen sun replaced the cold grey. The wind increased. It bit fiercely as it swept down the heated valley. And in a moment, it seemed, out of the bewildering fog there appeared the graceful outline of the nosing canoe.
Bill Wilder breathed a sigh of relief. At last the scales had fallen from before his eyes, and his way lay open to him. Instantly his paddle dipped, and his boat shot out into midstream. It leapt forward under the mighty thrusts of his arms, and as it raced on a fervent prayer went up that the wind might hold and increase in strength.
The canoe lay moored at the old log landing. There had been no hesitation. No doubt had been entertained for its security. Wilder had left it to such chances as might befall, his only means of return to the outer world, while he made his way over the snow-slush to the shades of the woodlands surrounding the secret habitation that was his goal.