The Sky Line of Spruce

tilled lands of Northern Washington, through the fertile valleys of lower British Columbia, traversing great mountain ranges and penetrating gloomy forests, and now had come

n swept with thankfulness for t

s they mended fence, sometimes helped at farm labor, and one gala morning, with entire good will and cheer, they

with beard and this new air of self-respect upon him. Perhaps they had forgotten him, but it was no less than he had done to them. The prison walls seemed already as if they hadn't been true. He loved every minute of the journey, freshnes

d trust in each other. Always they found each other steadfast, utterly to be relied upon. Ezram never regretted for a moment his

en's response was a growing excitement that at first he could not analyze. The air was sweeter, more bracing, and sometimes he discerned a fleeting, delicate odor that drew him up sho

he had wakened to find just such a delicate fragrance in his nostrils. But the key hadn't come to him yet. His memory pictures were ever stronger of outline,

ir night's lodging at cheap hotels. Spring was full in the land they had left: it was just beginning here. Th

canoe was bought for a reasonable sum-they were told they had a good chance of selling it again when they left the river near Snowy Gulch-and at the general store they bought an axe, rudimentary fishing tackle, tobacco, blankets, and all manner of simpler provisions, such

Ezram explained. "And they tell me there's a chance

ability, and at first Ben regarded the plan with considerable misgivings. And it was with the most profound amazement that, wh

you in a minute," Ben said.

e," Ezram answered. "There's a

n apprehension of immediate disaster Ben seized the paddle

n the movement of Ben's long fingers as he caught a new hold, finally the white flame of exultation that came into his face. For himself, Ben instantly knew that this w

he fast stroke, the best stroke for a long day's sail, the little half-turn in his hands that put the blade on edge in the water and gave him

r canoeist; at least he felt a strange, surging sense of self-confidence and power. He understood, now, why the image of rushing waters had come so often into his dreams. Dim pictures of river scenes-cataracts white with foam, rapi

ere both willing to glide with the current and watch the ever-changing vista of the shore. For the fir

the middle of the stream the woods appeared only as a dark wall, but this was immeasurably fascinating to Ben. It suggested mystery,

nguished and beautiful of all the evergreens. He marked their great height, their slender forms, their dark foliage that ever seemed to b

h of the North on his spring rush to the headwaters where he would spawn and die-and often the canoe sent flocks of waterfowl into flight. Ben dimly f

dy falling, the forest itself was hardly more vivid to their eyes. Once it seemed to Ben that he saw the underbrush move and waver at the w

nd was an open meadow, found so often and so unexpectedly

the alienist, Forest. His young charge had suddenly grown quite pale. Ben himself was neither aware of this nor of the fact that his heart was hammering wildly in his breast and his

saw the man from prison suddenly catch his breath in inexpressible awe and his eye kindle with a light of

heart. All of it spoke to him with familiar voice, seemingly to welcome him as a son is welcomed after long absence. Th

ringed about him, a silence that, in its infinite harmony with some queer mood of silence in his own heart, was more moving than any voice. All was as he had secretly known: the hushed tree aisles, the gray radiance-soft as a hand upon th

ld he speak aloud the thoughts that came to him. Ravished and mystified, he walked softl

st to him in his years of exile-climbed like fire through him; and with it the return of a lost virili

glance of infinite, inexpressible gratitude toward Ezram-the man who had brought him here and who now was busily engaged in unpacking the canoe and making camp-then looked back to

d not know. His eyes strained into the shadows. Brush wavered, a twig cracked with a

t they supplied the detail that was missing. They were the one thing needed to complete the picture-the crowning

ts, were the stimuli of which Forest, the alienist, had spoken; and his brain seemed to leap, as in one impul

own in one stupendous crash, settle and dissolve, leaving at last only drift logs floating quietly in the river. Thus it was with the confusion in his brain. All at once it seemed to dissolve, the tangled skeins

undings, in just such silences, on the banks of just such wilderness rivers. The same sky line of dark, heaven-reaching spruce had fronted him of old. He sprang