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 82-183.

CHAPTER II.

THE WHITE WOMAN IN THE WOOD.

I seek a sail that never looms from out the purple haze At rosy dawn, or fading eve, or in the noontide s blaze.

CELIA THAXTER.

ECIL walked listlessly on through the wood. He was worn out by the day s efforts, though it was as yet but the middle of the afternoon. There was a feeling of exhaustion in his lungs, a fluttering pain about his heart, the result of years of over-work upon a delicate frame. With this feeling of physical weak ness came always the fear that his strength might give way ere his work was done. Nor was this all. In these times of depression, the longing to see again the faces of his friends, to have again the sweet grace ful things of the life that was forever closed to him, rushed over him in a bitter flood.

The trail led him to the bank of the Columbia, some distance below the encampment. He looked out over the blue river sweeping majestically on, the white snow- peaks, the canyons deep in the shadows of afternoon, the dense forest beyond the river ex tending away to the unknown and silent North as far as his eyes could reach.

"It is wonderful, wonderful!" he thought. But I would give it all to look upon one white face/