It was springtime when they began, and through the long days of that short summer the engineers explored and mapped and located; and ever, close behind them, they could hear the steady roar of Foy’s fireworks as the skilled blasters burst big boulders or shattered the shoulders of great crags that blocked the trail of the iron horse.  Ever and anon, when the climbers and builders peered down into the ragged canon, they saw a long line of pack-animals, bipeds and quadrupeds,—­some hoofed and some horned, some bleeding, some blind,—­stumbling and staggering, fainting and falling, the fittest fighting for the trail and gaining the summit, whence the clear, green waters of the mighty Yukon would carry them down to Dawson,—­the Mecca of all these gold-mad men.  As often as the road-makers glanced at the pack-trains, they saw hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of traffic going past or waiting transportation at Skagway, and each strained every nerve to complete the work while the sun shone.

By midsummer they began to appreciate the fact that this was to be a hard job.  When the flowers faded on the southern slopes, they were not more than half-way up the hill.  Each day the sun swung lower across the canals, all the to-morrows were shorter than the yesterdays, and there was not a man among them with a shade of sentiment, or a sense of the beautiful, but sighed when the flowers died.  Yes, they had learned to love this maiden, Summer, that had tripped up from the south, smiled on them, sung for a season, sighed, smiled once more, and then danced down the Lynn again.

“I’ll come back,” she seemed to say, peeping over the shoulder of a glacier that stood at the stage entrance; “I’ll come back, but ere I come again there’ll be strange scenes and sounds on this rude stage so new to you.  First, you will have a short season of melodrama by a melancholy chap called Autumn, gloriously garbed in green and gold, with splashes and dashes of lavender and lace, but sad, sweetly sad, and sighing always, for life is such a little while.”

With a sadder smile, she kissed her rosy fingers and was gone,—­gone with her gorgeous garments, her ferns and flowers, her low, soft sighs and sunny skies, and there was not a man that was a man but missed her when she was gone.

The autumn scene, though sombre and sad, was far from depressing, but they all felt the change.  John Hislop seemed to feel it more than all the rest; for besides being deeply religious, he was deeply in love.  His nearest and dearest friend, Heney—­happy, hilarious Heney—­knew, and he swore softly whenever a steamer landed without a message from Minneapolis,—­the long-looked-for letter that would make Hislop better or worse.  It came at length, and Hislop was happy.  With his horse, his dog, and a sandwich,—­but never a gun,—­he would make long excursions down toward Lake Linderman, to Bennett, or over Atlin way.  When the country became too rough for the horse, he would be left picketed near a stream with a faithful dog to look after him while the pathfinder climbed up among the eagles.