Doris sniffed.

“I smell wood smoke,” she said.  “Is there a fire on the flat?”

“Yes, in a cook’s stove,” Hollister replied.  “There is a shack here.”

She questioned him and he told her of the Blands,—­all that he had been told, which was little enough.  Doris displayed a deep interest in the fact that a woman, a young woman, was a near neighbor, as nearness goes on the British Columbia coast.

From somewhere about the house Myra Bland appeared now.  To avoid the heavy current, Hollister hugged the right-hand shore so that he passed within a few feet of the bank, within speaking distance of this woman with honey-colored hair standing bareheaded in the sunshine.  She took a step or two forward.  For an instant Hollister thought she was about to exercise the immemorial privilege of the wild places and hail a passing stranger.  But she did not call or make any sign.  She stood gazing at them, and presently her husband joined her and together they watched.  They were still looking when Hollister gave his last backward glance, then turned his attention to the reddish-yellow gleam of new-riven timber which marked his own dwelling.  Twenty minutes later he slid the gray canoe’s forefoot up on a patch of sand before his house.

“We’re here,” he said.  “Home—­such as it is—­it’s home.”

He helped her out, guided her steps up to the level of the bottomland.  He was eager to show her the nest he had devised for them.  But Doris checked him with her hand.

“I hear the falls,” she said.  “Listen!”

Streaming down through a gorge from melting snowfields the creek a little way beyond plunged with a roar over granite ledges.  The few warm days had swollen it from a whispering sheet of spray to a deep-voiced cataract.  A mist from it rose among the deep green of the fir.

“Isn’t it beautiful—­beautiful?” Doris said.  “There”—­she pointed—­“is the canyon of the Little Toba coming in from the south.  There is the deep notch where the big river comes down from the Chilcotin, and a ridge like the roof of the world rising between.  Over north there are mountains and mountains, one behind the other, till the last peaks are white cones against the blue sky.  There is a bluff straight across us that goes up and up in five-hundred-foot ledges like masonry, with hundred-foot firs on each bench that look like toy trees from here.

“I used to call that gorge there”—­her pointing finger found the mark again—­“The Black Hole.  It is always full of shadows in summer, and in winter the slides rumble and crash into it with a noise like the end of the world.  Did you ever listen to the slides muttering and grumbling last winter when you were here, Bob?”

“Yes, I used to hear them day and night.”

They stood silent a second or two.  The little falls roared above them.  The river whispered at their feet.  A blue-jay perched on the roof of their house and began his harsh complaint to an unheeding world, into which a squirrel presently broke with vociferous reply.  An up-river breeze rustled the maple leaves, laid cooling fingers from salt water on Hollister’s face, all sweaty from his labor with the paddle.