Beyond the northern confines of the valley, somewhere behind a barrier of lesser hills, one great snowy head reared itself to the clouds. Similarly, to the south-west another stood up at a height that could not have been less than twelve thousand feet. Then, to the east, there were two others. They were monsters whose purpose was clearly that of cradle posts for the valley they sheltered between them.
It was all far-hidden by the secret approach up Three-Way Creek from the east. It was all even deeper lost to the hill and forest country of British Columbia, to the west. Devoid of any highway approach, it suggested the hiding-place it had become. It was one of Nature’s remotenesses completely disguised at the moment of furious labour when the world was born.
Pryse bestirred himself. Food and drink were aflood in this home that was his. And food and drink summed up his needs at the moment. He moved out into the full sunlight, and the dripping soil oozed under his ill-shod feet.
At his first movement his horse flung up its head. Its ears were pricked with all the alertness of its well-being. Its eyes were full and bright, for all its body was little better than skin and bone. There was inquiry in the soft-gazing depths. To the man it almost seemed as if they contained reproach.
“Don’t worry, old feller,” he said, as though speaking to a well-loved companion whose comprehension was beyond question. “Get right on with your feed. Eat it all. I’d like to see you so pot-bellied I couldn’t get the cinchas around you right.”
He moved on till he stood close up to the animal. Then he laid a caressing hand upon its attenuated neck.
“There’s no saddle to-day,” he went on. “Dan’s coming along, if he doesn’t get held up by a wash-out. He’s bringing tobacco, and matches, and tea, and a bunch of cartridges, so we can shoot up some of those dandy mallards. Maybe he’s bringing us news, too. And if it’s good news it’s liable to lead us to a place where there’s a bunch of oats for you, and something that’ll likely help me to look more like a man. We’ve waited and stuck it out, old feller, you and me. And I sort of feel there’s a good time coming. I’ll just get right along and haul up the lines in the creek, and see what sort of eat I’ll make.”
The horse rubbed its shaggy head against his thread-bare coat. No doubt it meant nothing. Yet it almost seemed as if the creature understood the feelings lying behind the smiling words. Pryse moved away.
He hurried out across the moist grass, and his step was light and vigorous. At that moment the world looked good to him. He was hungry. He was always hungry. And he knew from past experience, ever since the thaw had come, that it would be only a question of how many fish his night-lines had collected.
He reached the undergrowth at the river bank and disappeared within it. And only the sound of breaking bush came back as he thrust his way. He was gone for nearly half an hour. And when he reappeared, it was to be greeted by the hail of a horseman waiting for him at the edge of the woods that contained his winter home.