Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/404

308 the cañon, and he soon made friends with the two adventurers. From broken pieces of conversation and finally some confidences on the part of one of the boys, he learned something of their story. They had been bosom friends all their lives, but had fallen in love with the same girl. The poor girl, not knowing which she did like best, told them that the only thing was for both to leave her for two years, and at the end of the time she would decide in favour of the one that had showed himself the braver and more successful man. Each kept his destination a perfect secret, but to their astonishment, within a month after, they found each other in Spokane. They concluded that it was the appointment of fate, and so went together to the wild country of Chelan, to seek a fortune.

After they had been there a short time they found a mutual distrust springing up, and finally, by the advice of the old man, they agreed to separate. George was to stay below. He was the more sullen and selfish of the two, and it was due to him that they had fallen out. Harry was of a frank and generous nature, and when it became evident that they must part he insisted that he should help build a cabin for George. And the cabin that they built was the very one that we now saw lodged against the rocks. Harry went up the cañon toward the Skagit Pass, and there in the lonely grandeur of the glaciers he plied his pick and shovel.

A few months later there came a mighty Chinook, the warm wind of the Cascades, which strips the peaks of snow within a day, transforms the creeks into raging torrents, and sends floods down every dry gulch. The night after the wind began to blow the