To all these things Beatrice responded with the joy of a true nature lover.  Her heart thrilled and her eyes were bright; and every new track was a fresh surprise and delight.  But Ben was affected more deeply still.  The response he made had its origin and font in deeply hidden centers of his spirit; mysterious realms that no introspection could reveal or words lay bare.

He knew nothing of Beatrice’s sense of constant surprise.  In his own heart he had known that all these woodspeople would be waiting for him—­just as they were—­and he would have known far greater amazement to have found some of them gone.  And instead of sprightly delight he knew only an all-pervading sense of comfort, as a man feels upon returning to his home country, among the people whom he knows and understands.

XII

At the very headquarters of Poor Man’s Creek, where the stream had dwindled to a silver thread between mossy banks, Beatrice and Ben made their noon camp.  They were full in the heart of the wild, by now, and had mounted to those high levels and park lands beloved by the caribou.  They built a small fire beside the stream and drew water from the deep, clear pools that lay between cascade and cascade.

Ben Darby slowly became aware that this was one of the happiest hours of his life.  He watched, with absorbed delight, the deft, sure motions of the girl as she fried the grouse and sliced bread, while Ben himself tended to the coffee.  Already the two were on the friendliest terms, and since they were to be somewhere in the same region, the future offered the most pleasing vistas to both of them.  When the horses were rested and Ben’s pipe was out, they ventured on.  Following a caribou trail, they ascended a majestic range of mountains—­a trail too steep to ride and which the pack horses accomplished only with great difficulty—­emerging onto a high plateau of open parks and small clumps of the darkest spruce.  It was, of course, the most scenic part of the journey; and the inclination to talk died speedily from the lips.

They rode in silence, watching.  Both of them were sure that words, no matter how beautiful and eloquent, could be only a sacrilege.  The very tone of the high ranges is that of silence vast and eternal beyond scope of thought, and the only sounds that can fittingly shatter that mighty breathlessness are the great, calamitous phenomena of nature,—­the thunder crashing in the sky and the avalanche on the slope.  The forests they had just left were deeply silent, but the far hush had been alleviated by the soft noises of wild creatures stirring about their occupations; perhaps also by the feeling that the thickets were full of sound pitched just too high or just too low for human ears to hear; but even this relief was absent here.  The high peaks stretched before them, one after another, until they faded into the horizon,—­majestic, aloof, utterly and grandly silent.