And as she ran from him with the particles of gold, and carried them, as he bade her, to Harris, he followed her with his gaze until she disappeared through the green wall of the bushes. Once he started to follow her, and then stopped, suddenly muttered something about a "cursed fool," and flung himself face down in the tall grass.
"It's got to end here," he said, aloud, as men grow used to thinking when they live alone in the woods much. Then he raised himself on his elbows and looked over the little grassy dip of the land to where the stream from the hills sparkled in the warm sun; and then away beyond to where the evergreens raised their dark heads along the heights, looking like somber guardians keeping ward over the sunny valley of the twin springs. Over them all his gaze wandered, and then up into the deep forest above him--a forest unbroken from there to the swift Columbia.
The perfect harmony of it all must have oppressed him until he felt himself the one discordant note, for he closed his eyes with a sigh that was almost a groan.
"I'll see it all again--often, I suppose," he muttered; "but never quite as it is now--never, for it's got to end. The little bits of gold I found are a warning of the changes to come here--that is the way it seems to me. Queer how a man will change his idea of life in a year or so! There have been times when I would have rejoiced over the prospect of wealth there is here; yet all I am actually conscious of is regret that everything must change--the place--the people--all where gold is king. Pshaw! what a fool I would seem to any one else if he knew. Yet--well, I have dreamed all my days of a sort of life where absolute happiness could be lived. Other men do the same, I suppose--yes, of course. I wonder if others also come in reach of it too late. I suppose so. Well, reasoning won't change it. I marked out my own path--marked it out with as little thought as many another fool; but I've got to walk in it just the same, and cursing back don't help luck. But I had to have a little pow-wow all alone and be sorry for myself, before turning my back on the man I'd like to be--and--the rest of my dreams that have come in sight for a little while but can never come nearer--There she comes again! I'm glad of it, for she will at least keep me from drifting into dreams alone."