Instead, however, it seemed to hurry with news of those strange doings "up-river," news that every down-coming steamboat verified.

For years he had known that some day this thing would happen, that some day this isolation would be broken, that some day great hordes of men would overrun this unknown land, bringing with them that which he feared to meet, that which had made him what he was.

And now that the time had come, he was unprepared.
The sound of shouting caused him to turn his head.

Down-stream, a thousand yards away, men were raising a flag-staff made from the trunk of a slender fir, from which the bark had been stripped, heaving on their tackle as they sang in unison.

They stood well out upon the river's bank before a group of well-made houses, the peeled timbers of which shone yellow in the sun.