It was the wide smooth waters of a high perched mountain lake. Its expanse was dwarfed by the great hills on every hand. Its surface shone like a mirror in the brilliant sunshine, yet it was without one single grace to temper the fierce austerity of its tremendous setting. On the hillsides there were dark veins which suggested the tattered remnants of Nature’s effort to clothe their naked sides. There were low fringes of attenuated vegetation marking the line where land and water met. But the main aspect was one of barren hills crowned about their lofty summits with eternal snow, and the grey fields of glacial ice that never entirely yielded up possession of the earth they held prisoned.
Usak’s kyak was hugging the southern shore. Now his paddle dipped leisurely, for he had no stream with which to battle and his eyes were searching every yard of the dishevelled scrub which screened the shore.
Slowly the little craft crept on. There was no uncertainty in its progress. It was simply that the man sought for the thing he knew he would find and had no desire to waste a single moment of precious time through careless oversight.
He was rounding a headland. The fringe of scrub had faded out, leaving only the grey rock that sank sheer into the depths of the water. In a moment he flung power into the dip of his paddle and the kyak shot ahead. There was current here. Swift, crossing current that strove to head his craft put for the bosom of the lake. The man counted with prompt skill, and a savage satisfaction shone in his eyes.
Passing the headland he gazed upon the thing he had been searching. It was a narrow inlet debouching from a wide rift in the rampart of hills.
In a moment his vessel shot head on to the current. Then, swiftly, it passed from view of the open lake between the sheltered banks which were heavily overgrown by unbroken stretches of dense pine-wood bluffs.
An amazing transformation left the sterile setting of the mountain lake forgotten. Farther and farther, deeper and deeper into the hills the country seemed to change as by magic. East and west of the valley the hills rose up sheltering the gracious vegetation that looked to belong to latitudes hundreds of miles to the south, and a heat prevailed that was even greater than the intemperate Arctic summer.
Usak needed no explanation of the phenomenon. He knew that he was in the region of the great Fire Hills of the North. Hills that were always burning, whether in the depths of winter or the height of summer. And the heat of the earthly fires transformed the countryside into an oasis of verdant charm, a jewel of Nature set in the cold iron of the North.