There was nothing weak and little effeminate about Martha. Her scant cotton gown, without decoration, was shortened above a streak of coarse gray hose; her shoes were of calf, heavy, unshapely, and her hat, Eben's winter one, had seen protracted service. It shaded a face darkened by exposure to wind and sun, and seamed not by age but habitual anxiety.
The settler mounted a log and cast a slow glance along the windfall. There were mighty firs, centuries old, with their trunks hurled in air; boles of ancient cedars snapped mid-length; giant hemlocks held uptilted and forming a breastwork for living trees; gnarled roots locking with green branches; all dropped together like jackstraws, the playthings of Titan winds. Presently Martha joined him and they began to work along the labyrinth, picking a course for the horses.
Forrest had tied the black, and, taking advantage of the delay, led the teacher to a better view-point of the canyon, which swept below them, rounding the opposite ridge in the shape of a crescent. A granite tower, crowning a higher cliff, held the curve. It was a curious pile, of boulders fitted nicely, block on block, with loophole and parapet, and the whole structure tilted slightly, leaning towards the precipice.
The girl seated herself on a stone in the shade of a stunted fir, and Forrest, a little worn from the long tramp, threw himself on the ground, putting aside his hat and resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the earth, while he looked off down the gorge. "Somewhere in there," he said, "beyond that curve, I ought to find my lost prospect. The mother lode should crop out in one of those lower bluffs towards the Des Chutes. The thunder of the river reached me not long before,--I remember that clearly,--but I wish the place I staked that day had only been in range of that fine old landmark, the tower."
She looked down thoughtfully into the wooded gorge. "In such a tangle you might pass the place a dozen times. Your stakes must have been overgrown in a few weeks with fern and salal, or shoots of alder. It's really beginning again."
"Almost." He set his square jaw and a vertical line deepened between his eyes. "Still, it's there and sooner or later I'll find it. But I must make the most of this trip; I can't hope for many days off at the Freeport mills. That's the worst of it,"--he smiled, shaking his head,--"no more timber-cruising; nothing to take me out-of-doors."