Hoop-la sat motionless, the hand of his dead friend held in his warm clasp. Slowly his head dropped forward and his big frame shook with dry racking sobs. Doctor Paul came in hurriedly. In answer to the look of interrogation in Donald’s eyes, he shook his head sadly.
Donald and Wilkinson tiptoed softly to the door. They were unashamed of the tears that made furrows down their blackened cheeks. Sick at heart, utterly overcome by this tragedy, Wilkinson sank dejectedly to a seat outside the cabin door and covered his face with his hands.
There came a sudden patter of raindrops that drummed on the roof of the cabin. Wilkinson stood erect with arms stretched wide. “Rain!” he cried. “The merciful rain! Thank heaven!” He stood with face upturned for an interval, enjoying the pelting downpour, then turned to look in the cabin door, a deep and brooding sadness in his bloodshot eyes.
“Donald,” he said gently, “the newspaper account of this fire will mention the fact that ‘a logger was killed.’ A logger!—yes—men like Blackie are the backbone of this country, the salt of the earth. Will people ever learn?” he continued, in a voice vibrant with deep emotion. He pointed to the barkless skeletons of trees blackened and charred and branchless save for the gibbet-like limbs stuck out from the naked trunks. “Think of it! All this—the sniffing out of a valuable life—a verdant hillside changed to a charnel-house of dead trees and blackened stumps on bare rocks—the loss of thousands of dollars worth of valuable timber—all this caused by the careless dropping of a lighted cigarette!”
Donald’s announcement that Labour Day would be celebrated at the Lake was received with good-natured approval by the men of the camp, who spoke of the coming event as the “dry” holiday. The rain, which had brought such blessed relief to the hearts of the guardians of the forest, had cleansed the air of the last vestige of haze that had overhung the valley for the past month.
The morning of the holiday dawned auspiciously. The hot days of August had given place to the mellow sunshine of Indian summer. Through the crystal clear atmosphere the mountains seemed much nearer, standing out sharply against the blue sky. Near the top there had been a fresh fall of snow that had covered the bare ice of the glaciers like a white mantle. The brilliant rays of the September sun were reflected from this virgin covering with a brilliancy that was dazzling to the eye.