“That brake never was much good,” he said.  “One of the beasts stumbling jerked the line into the hook there, and the fore-wheel beam gave out when we struck the tree.  I’m most afraid we’ll have to stop right here tonight!”

“But that, as you will realize, is quite impossible,” said Deringham, glancing towards his daughter.

The man nodded.  “It looks that way now, but you wait until I’ve fixed things up,” said he.  “Then if you feel like walking eight miles I’ll go on with you.”

The girl noticed the swift orderliness of all he did as she watched him take out the horses and tether them, tear down armfuls of cedar-twigs, and then pack them between some flour-bag’s and the side of the wagon, over which he stretched a strip of waterproof sheeting.  Then he made a fire, disappeared into the mist, and coming back with the kettle, strode into the bush again.  In the meanwhile Deringham, looking into the wagon, pointed to the twigs.

“Do you think you could sleep there?” he said.

The girl glanced at the twigs.  They looked soft and springy, and had a pleasant aromatic fragrance, while the covering sheet was thick.

“I know I could not walk eight miles,” she said.  “Where has our accomplished companion gone to?”

Deringham laughed.  “To look for something for supper in the bush, I believe,” he said.  “I also fancy if there is anything eatable in the vicinity he will find it.”

The snows above had lost their brilliancy, and it was dark below, when the teamster returned with several fine trout which he skewered upon a barberry stem.  He also brought a deerhide bag from the wagon, and presently announced that supper was ready, while Alice Deringham, who long afterwards remembered that meal, enjoyed it considerably more than she would have believed herself capable of doing a few days earlier.  She had travelled far in search of something new, and this was the first time she had tasted the biting green tea with the reek of the smoke about it from a blackened pannikin.  Grindstone bread baked in a hole in the ground was also a novelty, and the crumbling flakes of salmon smoked by some Siwash Indian a delicacy, while she wondered if it was only the keen mountain air which made the flesh of the big trout so good, or whether it owed anything to skilful cookery.

There was also, by way of background, the glow of the fire flickering athwart the great columnar trunks which ran up into the dimness above her, and the cold glimmer of the snows with a pale star beyond them when the red flame sank, while the hoarse roar of an unseen river emphasized the silence.  At first she felt there was something unreal and theatrical about it all.  The light that blazed up and died, awful serenity of the snow, and the vast impenetrable shadows filled with profound silence, seemed all part of a fervidly-imagined spectacle; but as the silence deepened and gained upon her the position was reversed,