"The cabin?"

"It stands, please God!"

After much battling they spied the light shining through the louvers of its closed shutter. The gale streamed down the valley as through a funnel, but once past the angle of the cliff they found themselves almost in a calm. He pushed the door open.

On the hearth-the hearth of his building-a pile of logs burned cheerfully. Over these the kettle hissed; and the firelight fell on their bed, with its linen oversheet turned back and neatly folded.

She entered and he closed the door behind her. She laughed as he pushed its bolt. They were drenched to the skin, the pair.

"This is best," said she with another soft and happy laugh.

"This is best,” he repeated after her. "Better even than in fair weather."

CHAPTER VIII

HOME-COMING

A WEEK later they broke camp and set forth to climb to the head of the pass.

Behind it so Sir Oliver had learnt from old Strongtharm-lay an almost flat table-land, of pine-forest for the most part, through which for maybe half a dozen miles their river ran roughly parallel with another that came down from the north-west. At one point (the old fellow declared) less than a mile divided their

waters.

"Seems," he said, “as if Nature all along intended 'em to jine, and then, at the last moment, changed her mind." He explained the cause of their severance

-an outcropping ridge of rock, not above a mile in length; but it served, deflecting the one stream to the southward, the other to north of east, so that they reached the ocean a good twenty leagues apart.

He showed a map and told Sir Oliver further that at the narrowest point between the two rivers there dwelt a couple of brothers, Dave and Andy M'Lauchlin, with their households and long families, of whom all the boys were expert log drivers, like their fathers.

They were likewise expert boatmen, and for money, no doubt, if Sir Oliver desired, would navigate the upper reaches of either stream for him. Of these reaches the old man could tell little save that their currents ran moderately-" nothing out of the way." The M'Lauchlins sent all their timber down to sea by the more northerly stream. "Our river 'd be the better by far, three-fourths of its way, but-" with a jerk of his thumb-"the Gap, yonder, makes it foolishness."

Sir Oliver asked many questions, studying the map; and ended by borrowing it.

He had it spread on his knee when Ruth came out of the cabin for the last time, having said farewell to her household gods.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

A map." He folded it away hastily. "And I am not to see it?"

"Some day. Some day, if the owner will sell, you shall have it framed, with our travels marked out upon it. But, just now, it holds a small secret."

She questioned him no further. "Come," she said, "reach your arm in at the window and draw the bolt, and afterwards we will pull the shutter and nail it. Are you going inside for a last look around?"

He laughed. "Why? The knapsacks are here, ready."

"Our home!"

"I take the soul of it with me, taking you."

It was prettily said. Yet perversely she remembered how he had once spoken of Margaret Dance, saying, "Let the dead bury their dead."

The sky, after six angry days-two sullen, four tempestuous-was clear again and promised another stretch of fair weather. This was important, for they counted on having to sleep a night in the open before reaching the M'Lauchlins' camp. Old Strongtharm had told Sir Oliver of a cave at the head of the pass and directed him how to find it. Should the sky's promise prove false, they would descend back to the hut. Snow was their one serious peril.

They carried but the barest necessaries; for although the worst of the falls lay below and behind them, the upper part of the Gap was arduous enough, and the more difficult for being unknown; also Sir Oliver had old Strongtharm's assurance that the M'Lauchlins would furnish them with all things requisite for voyaging by water.

Sir Oliver climbed in silence. He was flinging a bridge, albeit a short one, across the unknown, and the risk of it weighed on him. For himself this would have counted nothing, but he was learning the lesson common to all male animals whose mates for the first time travel beside them. As for Ruth, it was wonder

ful-the course of the path once turned, the small home left out of sight-how securely she breasted the upward path. Her lover and she were as gods walking, treading the roof of the world.

Through thickets they climbed, and by stairways beside the singing falls. In a pool below one of these falls they surprised a great loon that had resorted here to live solitary through his moulting-season. He rose and winged away with a cry like an inhuman laugh; and they recognised a sound which had often been borne down the gorge once or twice at night, to awake and puzzle them.

They came to the uppermost fall a good hour before sunset, and after a little search Sir Oliver found the cave. They could have pushed on, but decided to sleep here: and they slept soundly, being in truth more weary than their spirits, exhilarated in the high air, allowed them to guess.

They might, as it turned out, by forcing the march, have found the M'Lauchlins' settlement before dusk. For scarcely had they travelled five miles next morning before they came on an outpost of it: a large hut, half dwelling-house, half boat-shed. It stood in a clearing on the left shore, and close by the water's edge was a young man, patching the bottom of an upturned canoe. Two children—a boy and a girl-had dropped their play to watch him. A flat-bottomed boat lay moored to the bank, close by.