And then they saw that MacDonald was not looking out over the sweep of the valley, but down.  Half a mile under them there was a dip—­a valley within a valley—­and through it ran the silver sheen of a stream.  MacDonald spoke no word now.  He dismounted and levelled his long telescope at the little valley.  Aldous helped Joanne from her horse, and they waited.  A great breath came at last from the old hunter.  Slowly he turned.  He did not give the telescope to Aldous, but to Joanne.  She looked.  For a full minute she seemed scarcely to breathe.  Her hands trembled when she turned to give the glass to Aldous.

“I see—­log cabins!” she whispered.

MacDonald placed a detaining hand on her arm.

“Look ag’in—­Joanne,” he said in a low voice that had in it a curious quiver.

Again she raised the telescope to her eyes.

“You see the little cabin—­nearest the river?” whispered Donald.

“Yes, I see it.”

“That was our cabin—­Jane’s an’ mine—­forty years ago,” he said, and now his voice was husky.

Joanne’s breath broke sobbingly as she gave Aldous the glass.  Something seemed to choke him as he looked down upon the scene of the grim tragedy in which Donald MacDonald and Jane had played their fatal part.  He saw the cabins as they had stood for nearly half a century.  There were four.  Three of them were small, and the fourth was large.  They might have been built yesterday, for all that he could see of ruin or decay.  The doors and windows of the larger cabin and two of the smaller ones were closed.  The roofs were unbroken.  The walls appeared solid.  Twice he looked at the fourth cabin, with its wide-open door and window, and twice he looked at the cabin nearest the stream, where had lived Donald MacDonald and Jane.

Donald had moved, and Joanne was watching him tensely, when he took the glass from his eyes.  Mutely the old mountaineer held out a hand, and Aldous gave him the telescope.  Crouching behind a rock he slowly swept the valley.  For half an hour he looked through the glass, and in that time scarce a word was spoken.  During the last five minutes of that half-hour both Joanne and Aldous knew that MacDonald was looking at the little cabin nearest the stream, and with hands clasped tightly they waited in silence.

At last old Donald rose, and his face and voice were filled with a wonderful calm.

“There ain’t been no change,” he said softly.  “I can see the log in front o’ the door that I used to cut kindling on.  It was too tough for them to split an’ burn after we left.  An’ I can see the tub I made out o’ spruce for Jane.  It’s leaning next the door, where I put it the day before we went away.  Forty years ain’t very long, Johnny!  It ain’t very long!”

Joanne had turned from them, and Aldous knew that she was crying.

“An’ we’ve beat ’em to it, Johnny—­we’ve beat ’em to it!” exulted MacDonald.  “There ain’t a sign of life in the valley, and we sure could make it out from here if there was!”