Publisher's Synopsis
It was a still, hot night, and the moon hung round and full above the cedars, when rancher Brooke sat in his comfortless shanty with a whisky bottle at his hand. The door stood open, and the drowsy fragrance of the coniferous forest stole into the room, while when he glanced in that direction he could see hemlock and cedar, redwood and balsam, tower, great black spires, against the luminous blueness of the night. Far above them gleamed the untrodden snow that clothed the great peaks with spotless purity; but this was melting fast under the autumn sun, and the river that swirled by the shanty sang noisily among the boulders. There are few more beautiful valleys than that one among all the ranges of British Columbia, but its wild grandeur made little impression upon Brooke that night. He felt that a crisis in his affairs was at hand, and he must face it boldly or go under once for all, for it was borne in upon him that he had already drifted perilously far. His face, however, grew a trifle grim, and his fingers closed irresolutely on the neck of the bottle, for drifting was easy in that country, and pleasant, so long as one did not remember.
