The snow still lay deep over the plateau, packed to the consistency of ice, and the marmots had not yet emerged to welcome the spring with their shrill, joyous whistling.  From their high place they could see the hills spread out below them,—­fold after fold as of a great cloak, deeply green, seemingly infinite in expanse, broken only by the blue glint of the Agnes lakes, like two great twin sapphires hidden in the forest.  But they couldn’t make out a single roof top of Snowy Gulch.  The forest had already claimed it utterly.

This was the caribou range; wherever they looked they saw the tracks of the noble animals in the snow.  Later they caught a glimpse of the creatures themselves, a small herd of perhaps half a dozen swinging along the snow in their indescribable pacing gait.  They were in fitting surroundings, their color inexpressibly vivid against the snow, and Ben’s heart warmed and thumped in his breast at the sight.

But the trail descended at last into the great valley of the Yuga.  Mile after mile, it seemed to them, they went down, leaving the snow, leaving the open glades, into the dark, still glens of spruce.  At last they paused on the river bank.

Ben was somewhat amazed at the size of the stream when it emerged below the rapids.  It was, at its present high stage, fully one hundred and fifty yards across, such a stream as would bear the traffic of commerce in any inhabited region.  They turned down the moose trail that followed its bank.

But it was not to be that this journey should hold only delight for Ben.  A half-mile down the river he suddenly made a most momentous and disturbing discovery.

He had stopped his horse to reread the copy of Hiram Melville’s letter, intending to verify his course.  In the shadow of the tall, dark spruce—­darkening ever as the light grew less—­his eye sped swiftly over it.  His gaze came to rest upon a familiar name.

“Look out for Jeff Neilson and his gang,” the letter read.  “They seen some of my dust.”

Neilson—­no wonder Ben had been perplexed when Beatrice had first spoken her name.  No wonder it had sounded familiar.  And the hot beads moistened his brow when he conceived of all the dreadful possibilities of that coincidence of names.

Yet because he was a woodsman of nature and instinct, blood and birth, he retained the most rigid self-control.  He made no perceptible start.  At first he did not glance at Beatrice.  Slowly he folded the letter and put it back into his pocket.

“I’m going all right,” he announced.  He urged his horse forward.  His perfect self-discipline had included his voice:  it was deep, but wholly casual and unshaken.  “And how about you, Miss Neilson?”

He pronounced her name distinctly, giving her every chance to correct him in case he had misunderstood her.  But there was no hope here.  “I’m going all right, I know.”

“It seems to me we must be heading into about the same country,” Ben went on.  “You see, Miss Neilson, I’m going to make my first permanent camp somewhere along this still stretch; I’ve had inside dope that there’s big gold possibilities around here.”