The old man paused in the act of splitting off a deer rib from his roast.

“Ye’re one awful damn fool, ain’t ye, Will?  I did hope ter finish up here, a-brilin’ my meat in a yaller-gold fireplace; but no matter how plain an’ simple a man’s tastes is, allus somethin’ comes along ter bust ’em up.”

“Well, go on and finish your meal in this plain fireplace of ours, Bill.  It has done us very well.  I think I’ll go down to the sluice a while.”

Banion rose and left the cabin, stooping at the low door.  Moodily he walked along the side of the steep ravine to which the little structure clung.  Below him lay the ripped-open slope where the little stream had been diverted.  Below again lay the bared bed of the exploited water course, floored with bowlders set in deep gravel, at times with seamy dams of flat rock lying under and across the gravel stretches; the bed rock, ages old, holding in its hidden fingers the rich secrets of immemorial time.

Here he and his partner had in a few months of strenuous labor taken from the narrow and unimportant rivulet more wealth than most could save in a lifetime of patient and thrifty toil.  Yes, fortune had been kind.  And it all had been so easy, so simple, so unagitating, so matter-of-fact!  The hillside now looked like any other hillside, innocent as a woman’s eyes, yet covering how much!  Banion could not realize that now, young though he was, he was a rich man.

He climbed down the side of the ravine, the little stones rattling under his feet, until he stood on the bared floor of the bed rock which had proved so unbelievably prolific in coarse gold.

There was a sharp bend in the ravine, and here the unpaid toil of the little waterway had, ages long, carried and left especially deep strata of gold-shot gravel.  As he stood, half musing, Will Banion heard, on the ravine side around the bend, the tinkle of a falling stone, lazily rolling from one impediment to another.  It might be some deer or other animal, he thought.  He hastened to get view of the cause, whatever it might be.

And then fate, chance, the goddess of fortune which some men say does not exist, but which all wilderness-goers know does exist, for one instant paused, with Will Banion’s life and wealth and happiness lightly a-balance in cold, disdainful fingers.

He turned the corner.  Almost level with his own, he looked into the eyes of a crawling man who—­stooped, one hand steadying himself against the slant of the ravine, the other below, carrying a rifle—­was peering frowningly ahead.

It was an evil face, bearded, aquiline, not unhandsome; but evil in its plain meaning now.  The eyes were narrowed, the full lips drawn close, as though some tense emotion now approached its climax.  The appearance was that of strain, of nerves stretched in some purpose long sustained.

And why not?  When a man would do murder, when that has been his steady and premeditated purpose for a year, waiting only for opportunity to serve his purpose, that purpose itself changes his very lineaments, alters his whole cast of countenance.  Other men avoid him, knowing unconsciously what is in his soul, because of what is written on his face.