accustomed to the semi-darkness, broken only by the scintillation of
the dying embers of their fire, he could take in every detail of their
sordid cabin and the rude environment in which they had lived so long.
The dismal patches on the bark roof, the wretched makeshifts of each
day, the dreary prolongation of discomfort, were all plain to him now,
without the sanguine hope that had made them bearable. And when he
shut his eyes upon them, it was only to travel in fancy down the steep
mountain side that he had trodden so often to the dreary claim on the
overflowed river, to the heaps of "tailings" that encumbered it, like
empty shells of the hollow, profitless days spent there, which they
were always waiting for the stroke of good fortune to clear away. He saw
again the rotten "sluicing," through whose hopeless rifts and holes even
their scant daily earnings had become scantier. At last he arose,
and with infinite gentleness let himself down from his berth without
disturbing his sleeping partner, and wrapping himself in his blanket,
went to the door, which he noiselessly opened. From the position of a
few stars that were glittering in the northern sky he knew that it was
yet scarcely midnight; there were still long, restless hours before the
day! In the feverish state into which he had gradually worked himself it
seemed to him impossible to wait the coming of the dawn.

But he was mistaken. For even as he stood there all nature seemed to
invade his humble cabin with its free and fragrant breath, and invest
him with its great companionship. He felt again, in that breath, that
strange sense of freedom, that mystic touch of partnership with the
birds and beasts, the shrubs and trees, in this greater home before him.
It was this vague communion that had kept him there, that still held
these world-sick, weary workers in their rude cabins on the slopes
around him; and he felt upon his brow that balm that had nightly lulled
him and them to sleep and forgetfulness. He closed the door, turned