ground and plant it in wheat this spring. The road will be slower; it has many hills and valleys to cross, but by summer when the harvest is ripe, it will be ready to carry the grain away. Some day we will be able to fill one of those great ships whose sailing once so nearly broke my heart.”
“And that man there?” questioned Hugh, motioning upward toward the cabin that lowered at them from above on Jasper Peak.
“We can carry him out to Rudolm, now that the way is cleared,” Oscar answered. “I think he may live a little time longer, but his power to do harm is gone forever. Yet when he tried to burn the cottage he came, but for you, very near to beating us at last.”
They walked down the hill to the edge of the lake so that Hugh might catch a glimpse, around an intervening spur, of the line of cleared ground that wound across the valleys. They sat down upon a snowy log and talked long and earnestly of what had passed and of what was to come. Suddenly Hugh looked down and recognized the big tree trunk upon which they sat.
