This stream, Ezram knew, was Poor Man’s Creek, the stream of which his brother had written and which they must ascend to reach Spruce Pass.  Only five miles distant, in a quartering direction from the river, was Snowy Gulch, the village where they were to secure supplies and, from Steve Morris, the late Hiram’s gun and his pet, Fenris.

For a time, at least, they had left the utter solitudes of the wild.  Men had cut away the forest and had built a crude wagon road to Snowy Gulch.  And before they were fully unpacked they made out the figure of a middle-aged frontiersman, his back loaded, advancing up the road toward them.

Both men knew something of the ways of the frontier and turned in greeting.  “Howdy,” Ezram began pleasantly.

“Howdy,” the stranger replied.  “How was goin’?”

“Oh, good enough.”

“Come all the way from Saltsville?”

“Yes.  Goin’ to Snowy Gulch.”

“It’s only five miles, up this road,” the stranger ventured.  “I’m goin’ up Saltsville way myself, but I won’t have no river to tow me.  I’ve got to do my own paddlin’.  Thank the lord I’m only goin’ a small part of the way.”

“You ain’t goin’ to swim, are you?  Where’s your boat.”

“My pard’s got an old craft, and he and I are goin’ to pack it out next trip.”  The stranger paused, blinking his eyes.  “Say, partners—­you don’t want to sell your boat, do you?”

Ben started to speak, but the doubtful look on Ezram’s face checked him.  “Oh, I don’t know,” the old man replied, in the discouraging tones of a born tradesman.  In reality the old Shylock’s heart was leaping gayly in his breast.  This was almost too good to be true:  a purchaser for the boat in the first hour.  “Yet we might,” he went on.  “We was countin’ on goin’ back in it soon.”

“I’d just as leave buy it, if you want to sell it.  In this jerked-off town there ain’t a fit canoe to be had.  Our boat is the worst tub you ever seen.  How much you want for it?”

Ezram stated his figure, and Ben was prone to believe that he had adopted a highwayman for a buddy.  The amount named was nearly twice that which they had paid.  And to his vast amazement the stranger accepted the offer in his next breath.

“It’s worth something to bring it up here, you dub,” Ezram informed his young partner, when the latter accused him of profiteering.

After the sale was made Ezram and the stranger soon got on the intimate terms that almost invariably follow a mutually satisfactory business deal, and in the talk that ensued the old man learned a fact of the most vital importance to their venture.  And it came like a bolt from the blue.

“So you don’t know any folks in Snowy Gulch, then?” the stranger had asked politely.  “But you’ll get acquainted soon enough—­”

“I’ve got a letter to a feller named Morris,” Ezram replied.  “And I’ve heard of one or two more men too—­Jeffery Neilson was one of ’em—­”